Efficient Photochromic Transformation of a New Fluorenyl Diarylethene: One- and Two-Photon Absorption Spectroscopy

    Authors

    G. Luchita; M. V. Bondar; S. Yao; I. A. Mikhailov; C. O. Yanez; O. V. Przhonska; A. E. Masunov;K. D. Belfield

    Comments

    Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

    Keywords

    photochromic reaction; photoisomerization; diarylethene; two-photon; absorption; transient absorption spectroscopy; OPTICAL-DATA STORAGE; NONDESTRUCTIVE READOUT; MOLECULAR SWITCHES; LASER; PHOTOLYSIS; DERIVATIVES; DEVICES; LIGHT; CHROMOPHORES; DYNAMICS; FLUOROPHORES; Nanoscience & Nanotechnology; Materials Science, Multidisciplinary

    Abstract

    Efficient reversible phototransformation of a new diarylethene-fluorene derivative, 1,2-bis(5-(9,9-didecyl-7-nitro-9H-fluoren-2-yl)-2-methylthiophen-3-yl)cyclopent-1-ene (1), was demonstrated in organic media under low-intensity laser excitation. Linear photophysical characterization of 1 was performed at room temperature in solvents of different polarity and viscosity. Significantly, close to unity quantum yield for the cyclization reaction of 1 was shown in nonpolar solutions. The lifetimes of the excited states of the open (OF) and closed (CF) forms of 1 were measured by a femtosecond transient absorption technique, and corresponding values of similar to 0.7 and similar to 0.9 ps were shown in dichloromethane (DCM), respectively. Degenerate two-photon absorption (2PA) spectra of the OF and CF of 1 were obtained over a broad spectral range by the open aperture Z-scan method under 1 kHz femtosecond excitation. The values of 2PA cross sections of the OF in DCM (similar to 50-70 GM) were found to increase up to 1 order of magnitude (similar to 600 GM) after cyclization to the CF. The nature of cyclization and cylcoreversion processes were investigated by quantum chemistry with employment of DFT-based methods implemented in the Gaussian'09 program. The potential of 1 for application in optical data storage was shown using poly(methyl methacrylate)-doped films and two-photon fluorescence microscopy readout.

    Journal Title

    Acs Applied Materials & Interfaces

    Volume

    3

    Issue/Number

    9

    Publication Date

    1-1-2011

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    3559

    Last Page

    3567

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000295236900049

    ISSN

    1944-8244

    Share

    COinS