Balamut Brandon, Aprahamian Ivan
6128 Burke Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, United States.
J Am Chem Soc. 2025 Jun 11;147(23):19444-19449. doi: 10.1021/jacs.5c03668. Epub 2025 May 28.
The development of photochromic compounds that can have multiaddressable and -stable states is desirable for imparting multistate responses in soft materials. Here, we report on two such photochromes, composed of -NO- and pentafluoro-phenyl functionalized hydrazones connected nonsymmetrically through an isosorbide linker, which exhibit highly efficient, orthogonal, and sequential switching. We took advantage of these properties and the multistability of the four different isomeric states (i.e., , , , and ) to control the photophysical properties of nematic liquid crystals (LCs). Doping the switches into 5CB, followed by switching to the state, triggered an unusual cholesteric to focal conic phase transition. We used this property to modulate the opacity of the LC films, resulting in a molecular steganography application.
开发具有多可寻址和稳定状态的光致变色化合物对于赋予软材料多态响应是很有必要的。在此，我们报道了两种这样的光致变色化合物，它们由通过异山梨醇连接基非对称连接的 -NO- 和五氟苯基官能化腙组成，表现出高效、正交和顺序切换特性。我们利用这些特性以及四种不同异构体状态（即 、 、 和 ）的多稳定性来控制向列型液晶（LCs）的光物理性质。将这些开关掺杂到5CB中，然后切换到 状态，引发了不寻常的胆甾相到焦锥相转变。我们利用这一特性来调节LC薄膜的不透明度，从而实现了分子隐写术应用。
