Surface-induced selection during in situ photoswitching at the solid/liquid interface

Sara Bonacchi; Mohamed El Garah; Artur Ciesielski; Martin Herder; Simone Conti; Marco Cecchini; Stefan Hecht; Paolo Samorì

doi:10.1002/anie.201412215

Surface-induced selection during in situ photoswitching at the solid/liquid interface

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2015 Apr 13;54(16):4865-9. doi: 10.1002/anie.201412215. Epub 2015 Feb 27.

Authors

Sara Bonacchi¹, Mohamed El Garah, Artur Ciesielski, Martin Herder, Simone Conti, Marco Cecchini, Stefan Hecht, Paolo Samorì

Affiliation

¹ Nanochemistry Laboratory, ISIS & icFRC, Université de Strasbourg & CNRS, 8 allée Gaspard Monge, 67000 Strasbourg (France).

PMID: 25728405
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201412215

Abstract

Here we report for the first time a submolecularly resolved scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) study at the solid/liquid interface of the in situ reversible interconversion between two isomers of a diarylethene photoswitch, that is, open and closed form, self-assembled on a graphite surface. Prolonged irradiation with UV light led to the in situ irreversible formation of another isomer as by-product of the reaction, which due to its preferential physisorption accumulates at the surface. By making use of a simple yet powerful thermodynamic model we provide a quantitative description for the observed surface-induced selection of one isomeric form.

Keywords: diarylethene; interfaces; in situ photoswitching; scanning tunneling microscopy; self-assembly.