Tuning Azoheteroarene Photoswitch Performance through Heteroaryl Design - Sorbonne Université
Journal Articles Journal of the American Chemical Society Year : 2017

Tuning Azoheteroarene Photoswitch Performance through Heteroaryl Design

Abstract

Photoswitchable compounds, which can be reversibly switched between two isomers by light, continue to attract significant attention for a wide array of applications. Azoheteroarenes represent a relatively new but understudied type of photoswitch, where one of the aryl rings from the conventional azobenzene class has been replaced with a five-membered heteroaromatic ring. Initial studies have suggested the azoheteroarenes – the arylazopyrazoles in particular – to have excellent photoswitching properties (quantitative switching and long Z isomer half-life). Here we present a systematic computational and experimental study to elucidate the origin of the long thermal half-lives and excellent addressability of the arylazopyrazoles, and apply this understanding to determine important structure-property relationships for a wide array of comparable azoheteroaryl photoswitches. We identify compounds with Z isomer half-lives ranging from seconds to hours, to days and to years, and variable absorption characteristics; all through tuning of the heteraromatic ring. Conformation perhaps plays the largest role in determining such properties; where the compounds with the longest isomerization half-lives adopt a T-shaped ground state Z isomer conformation and proceed through a T-shaped isomerization pathway, whereas the most complete photoswitching is achieved for compounds that have a twisted (rather than T-shaped) Z-isomer conformation. By balancing these factors, we report a new azopyrazole 3pzH, which can be quantitatively switched to its Z-isomer (>98%) with 355 nm irradiation, near-quantitatively (97%) switched back to the E isomer with 532 nm irradiation, and has a very long half-life for thermal isomerisation (t 1/2 = 74 d at 25 °C). Given the large tunability of their properties, the predictive nature of their performance, and the other functional opportunities afforded by usage of a heteroaromatic system, we believe the azoheteroaryl photoswitches to have huge potential in a wide range of optically addressable applications.
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Dates and versions

hal-01444929 , version 1 (24-01-2017)

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Joaquín Calbo, Claire E. Weston, Andrew J. P. White, Henry S. Rzepa, Julia Contreras-García, et al.. Tuning Azoheteroarene Photoswitch Performance through Heteroaryl Design. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2017, ⟨10.1021/jacs.6b11626⟩. ⟨hal-01444929⟩
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