Controlling the Cycloreversion Reaction of a Diarylethene Derivative Using Sequential Two-Photon Excitation

Abstract

Diarylethenes (DAE) are a class of photochromic molecular switches that convert between two structural isomers upon excitation with light. A great deal of research has been dedicated to elucidating the mechanisms of the reversible electrocyclic reactions to make optical memory devices with DAE compounds, but details of the fundamental reaction mechanism after one- or two-photons of light is still lacking. The primary DAE discussed in this dissertation is 1,2-bis(2,4-dimethyl-5-phenyl-3-thienyl)perfluorocyclopentene (DMPT-PFCP), which is a model compound for studying the fundamental reaction dynamics using one- and two-photon excitation experiments. Pump-probe spectroscopy was used to study the low one-photon quantum yield cycloreversion reaction of DMPT-PFCP by changing the excitation wavelength, solvent, and temperature to describe the dynamics on the ground- and excited states. However, the primary goal of this work was to use sequential two-photon excitation with fs laser pulses to map out the cycloreversion reaction dynamics for DMPT-PFCP compound on the first and higher excited states. The cycloreversion quantum yield was selectively increased using sequential two-photon excitation, where after promotion to the S1 state, a second excitation pulse promotes the molecules to an even higher excited state. The mechanism of increasing the yield by promoting the molecules to a higher excited state was explored using pump-repump-probe (PReP) spectroscopy. The PReP experiments follow the excited-state dynamics as the molecules sample different regions of the S1 potential energy surface. The projection of the S1 dynamics onto the higher excited states showed that by changing the secondary excitation wavelength and the delay between excitation pulses, the cycloreversion quantum yield was selectively controlled. Future studies to obtain the specific modes involved in the ring-opening reaction coordinate on the excited-state would further improve our knowledge of the cycloreversion reaction and therefore improve the efficiency of the sequential two-photon excitation process to make very efficient optical memory devices using DAE compounds.