Investigation of a Photochromic Diarylethene with Electron-acceptor Attached

Abstract

In this contribution, an electron acceptor attached diarylethene derivative was synthesized and fully characterized. The photochromic behavior was investigated in THF. Under exposure of UV and visible light cycles, the solution color can be switched between colorless and yellow smoothly. Fatigue resistance measurements could be repeated 50 times with an acceptable degradation. Due to the electron acceptor attached to the framework of diarylethene, the photo- and thermal-stability were enhanced both. A full-photo mode switch can be established based on the well-defined states by external excitation. The molecular structures of ring-open and ring-closed form were optimized by Dmol³. The distance between photocyclizing atoms in aptiparallel conformation meets the requirement for photochromic reaction. And the calculated absorption wavelengths were also in agreement with the experimental values.

Keywords::

• diarylethene
• photochromism
• fatigue resistance
• photo- and thermal-stability
• photocyclizing atoms

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 21272060), University Student Renovation Project (grant no. 20140166), and Program for Innovative Research Team in Science and Technology in University of Henan Province (15IRTSTHN 003). This study was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (grant no. 2014006660).