Toward real-world applications: promoting fast and efficient photoswitching in the solid state

Abstract

Photoresponsive materials show the superiorities to be controlled by light in a non-contact, efficient and precise manner, which are therefore attractive in the fields of therapy, pharmacology, semiconductor engineering and...

All‐Visible‐Light Triggered Photoswitch of Dithienylethene Derivatives with Molecular Conformation Changes Excess 5 Å

“…Table 1 also shows that the changes of molecule sizes in horizontal (m) direction and vertical (n) direction (Figure 3a) of conformation I and conformation II are very large, especially in n direction, which is greater than 5 Å, exceeding the changes of DTE conformations during isomerization (1.1 Å in horizontal direction and 0.7 Å in vertical direction). [5] In order to investigate the relationship between the change of crystal size and solvent polarity, molecule energy, potential distribution and dipole moment of their single crystals were calculated using time-dependent DFT. As shown in Table 1, the molecule energy of different conformations of the same compound is almost the same, indicating that the conformational difference is not ascribed to the molecule energy.…”

“…In the past two decades, many photosensitive systems, such as spiropyran, azobenzene, dithienylethene (DTE), triphenylethylene (Tri-PE) derivatives, and donor-acceptor Stenhouse adducts, have been designed and studied. [5,6] However, most of the reported systems display responsible photosensitive-feature under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation which with high-energy leads to photobleaching, material damage, cell mutation, and low tissue permeability, [5,7] and thus limit the practical applications of photosensitive materials. Therefore, it is in high demand to develop reversible photosensitive molecules under visible light or even near-infrared light irradiations.…”

“…[7b,9e,16] However, for most visible light triggered photoresponsive molecules, the isomerization process in the aggregate states is always hindered due to the strong intermolecular π-π stacking caused by planar moieties. [5] With regard to this, highly twisted tetraphenylethylene groups were introduced into DTE skeleton to ensure their photochromism in solid state, whereas due to insufficient conjugation, the excitation wavelength of cyclization reaction can only be observed in the UV region. [17] Therefore, the balance between the π-conjugation and steric hindrance of the molecules should be rationally designed to obtain visible-light triggered photochromic feature in both isolated and aggregated states.…”

“…Photosensitive materials have attracted much interest because of their great applications in data storage, [1] sensor, [2] photoswitch, [3] anti-counterfeiting, [4] biomedicine, [5] and so on. In the past two decades, many photosensitive systems, such as spiropyran, azobenzene, dithienylethene (DTE), triphenylethylene (Tri-PE) derivatives, and donor-acceptor Stenhouse adducts, have been designed and studied.…”

Hydrazone‐Based AIEgens with Photofluorochromic Ability for Rewritable, Intensity‐Variable, and High‐Resolution Photopattern

“…Moreover, such a close molecular packing reduces fluorescence efficiency and the number of switching cycles. [3] Although many strategies have been applied to solve these problems, few systems with both high isomerization rates and fluorescence efficiency have been developed. [4] Besides, most photo-patternable systems based on photochromic molecules only provide binary signals of "0" and "1" with low resolution, which hinders their possible applications as dynamic materials.…”