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Organic chemistry

A digital fluorescent molecular photoswitch

The signal from a gaudy ring molecule flashes on and off as light flicks it open and shut.

Abstract

Fluorescent properties can be useful not only for tracking individual molecules within a microenvironment, but also in molecular-scale opto-electronics. Here we use external photostimulation to switch the fluorescence on and off from a single photochromic molecule embedded in a polymer film. This digital response is due to photo-isomerization of the molecule, which may eventually find application in erasable optical data-storage elements.

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Figure 1: Fluorescence images and time traces of single photoswitching molecules of the open- and closed-ring forms of a compound in which a photochromic diarylethene derivative is linked to a fluorescent anthracene derivative through an adamantyl spacer.

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Correspondence to Masahiro Irie.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Irie, M., Fukaminato, T., Sasaki, T. et al. A digital fluorescent molecular photoswitch. Nature 420, 759–760 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/420759a

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