ジアリールエテンの高速T型フォトクロミズム

抄録

Photochromic compounds can be classified into thermally reversible type (T-type) and photochemically reversible type (P-type) depending on its thermal stability of the photogenerated isomer. Generally, diarylethenes undergoing a reversible photoisomerization between the colorless open-ring isomer and the colored closed-ring isomer are classified into the P-type and have excellent properties such as high photosensitivity, high durability, high photoresponsivity, and high reactivity in the crystalline state. Meanwhile, recently, we have discovered diarylethene derivatives that function as fast T-type photochromic molecules, in which the thermal ring-opening reaction (thermal back reaction) occurs extremely fast at room temperature, in the order of microseconds to milliseconds. Such molecules are expected to be used in applications such as fluorescent switching molecules for super-resolution microscopes and real-time holographic materials. In this topic, we introduce our research on the development of fast T-type photochromic diarylethenes.