Proton-Stabilized Photochemically Reversible E/ Z Isomerization of Spiropyrans.

Spiropyrans undergo Cspiro-O bond breaking to their ring-open protonated E-merocyanine form upon protonation and irradiation via an intermediate protonated Z-merocyanine isomer. We show that the extent of acid-induced ring opening is controlled by matching both the concentration and strength of the acid used and with strong acids full ring opening to the Z-merocyanine isomer occurs spontaneously allowing its characterization by 1H NMR spectroscopy as well as UV/vis spectroscopy, and reversible switching between Z/ E-isomerization by irradiation with UV and visible light. Under sufficiently acidic conditions, both E- and Z-isomers are thermally stable. Judicious choice of acid such that its p Ka lies between that of the E- and Z-merocyanine forms enables thermally stable switching between spiropyran and E-merocyanine forms and hence pH gating between thermally irreversible and reversible photochromic switching.

Chirality controlled responsive self-assembled nanotubes in water.

The concept of using chirality to dictate dimensions and to store chiral information in self-assembled nanotubes in a fully controlled manner is presented. We report a photoresponsive amphiphile that co-assembles with its chiral counterpart to form nanotubes and demonstrate how chirality can be used to effect the formation of either micrometer long, achiral nanotubes or shorter (∼300 nm) chiral nanotubes that are bundled. The nature of these assemblies is studied using a variety of spectroscopic and microscopic techniques and it is shown that the tubes can be disassembled with light, thereby allowing the chiral information to be erased.

Reversible photochromic switching in a Ru(II) polypyridyl complex.

Fully reversible photoswitching of the coordination mode of the ligand MeN4Py (1,1-di(pyridin-2-yl)-N,N'-bis(pyridin-2-yl-methyl)-ethan-1-amine) in its ruthenium(II) complex with visible light is reported. Irradiation with visible light results in dissociation of a pyridyl moiety, which is reversed by irradiation at 355 nm.

Reinvestigating 2,5-di(pyridin-2-yl)pyrazine ruthenium complexes: selective deuteration and Raman spectroscopy as tools to probe ground and excited-state electronic structure in homo- and heterobimetallic complexes.

The mono- (1) and dinuclear (2) ruthenium(II) bis(2,2'-bipyridine) complexes of 2,5-di(pyridin-2-yl)pyrazine (2,5-dpp), for which the UV/Vis absorption and emission as well as electrochemical properties have been described earlier, are reinvestigated here by resonance, surface enhanced and transient resonance Raman spectroscopy together with selective deuteration to determine the location of the lowest lying excited metal to ligand charge transfer ((3)MLCT) states. The ground state absorption spectrum of both the mono- and dinuclear complexes are characterised by resonance Raman spectroscopy. The effect of deuteration on emission lifetimes together with the absence of characteristic bipy anion radical modes in the transient Raman spectra for both the mono- and dinuclear complexes bridged by the 2,5-dpp ligand confirms that the excited state is 2,5-dpp based; however DFT calculations and the effect of deuteration on emission lifetimes indicate that the bipy based MLCT states contribute to excited state deactivation. Resonance Raman and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopic (SERS) data for 1 and 2 are compared with that of the heterobimetallic complexes [Ru(bipy)(2)(2,5-dpp)PdCl(2)](2+)3 and [Ru(bipy)(2)(2,5-dpp)PtCl(2)](2+)4. The SERS data for 1 indicates that a heterobimetallic Ru-Au complex forms in situ upon addition of 1 to a gold colloid.