Novel class of photochromic molecules exhibiting photo-switching in the solid state

Thomas Loan; Mithun Santra; Mark Bradley

doi:10.3389/fchem.2023.1205452

Novel class of photochromic molecules exhibiting photo-switching in the solid state

Front Chem. 2023 Jun 7:11:1205452. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2023.1205452. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Thomas Loan¹, Mithun Santra¹, Mark Bradley¹

Affiliation

¹ School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Photo-switching compounds are widely used as super-resolution imaging agents, anti-counterfeiting dyes, and molecules that are able to control drug-receptor interactions. However, advancement of this field has been limited by the number of classes of molecules that exhibit this phenomenon, and thus there are growing activities to discover new photo-switching compounds that diversify and improve current applications and include the so-called donor-acceptor Stenhouse adducts. Herein, a new class of compounds, phenylindole alkene dimers, are presented as a novel class of photochromic molecules that exhibit photo-switching in the solid state. The synthesis of a small library of these compounds allowed the tuning of their optical properties. Surfaces coated with these photo-switches can be used as writable materials in a variety of applications.

Keywords: chromogenic; cycloaddition; phenylindole alkene dimers; photo-switching; solid state.

Grants and funding

This study received funding from EPSRC, GSK, and NPL. The funders were not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.