How do donor and acceptor substituents change the photophysical and photochemical behavior of dithienylethenes? The search for a water-soluble visible-light photoswitch† † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Synthetic procedures and full characterization for all compounds, spectroscopic data, copies of NMR spectra, MS data and computational details. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d3sc01458d

ABSTRACT: Dithienylethenes are a type of diarylethene and they constitute one of the most widely studied classes of photoswitch, yet there have been no systematic studies of how electron-donor or -acceptor substituents affect their properties. Here we report eight dithienylethenes bearing push–push, pull–pull and push–pull substitution patterns with different lengths of conjugation in the backbone and investigate their photophysical and photochemical properties. Donor–acceptor interactions in the closed forms of push–pull dithienylethenes shift their absorption spectra into the near-infrared region (λmax ≈ 800 nm). The push–pull systems also exhibit low quantum yields for photochemical electrocyclization, and computational studies indicate that this can be attributed to stabilization of the parallel

SUBMITTER: Qiu S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10466371 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature