One-Color Reversible Control of Photochromic Reactions in a Diarylethene Derivative: Three-Photon Cyclization and Two-Photon Cycloreversion by a Near-Infrared Femtosecond Laser Pulse at 1.28 μm

• DOI: 10.1021/ja108992t
• Publication Date: 2011-02-04T16:16:51Z
• Authors: Kazuya Mori; Yukihide Ishibashi; Hirohisa Matsuda; Syoji Ito; Yutaka Nagasawa; Hirotomo Nakagawa; Kingo Uchida; Satoshi Yokojima; Shinichiro Nakamura; Masahiro Irie; Hiroshi Miyasaka
• Keywords: Photons; Molecular Structure; Cyclization; Infrared Rays; Photochemistry; Lasers; Stereoisomerism; Ethylenes; 01 natural sciences; 0104 chemical sciences

One-color control of colorization/decolorization reactions of diarylethene molecules was attained by using nonresonant high-order multiphoton absorption processes with a near-infrared (NIR) femtosecond laser pulse at 1.28 μm with 35 fs full width at half-maximum (fwhm). The intensity of a rather weak laser pulse (<1 nJ/pulse) can induce the simultaneous three-photon absorption leading to the colorization, while much weaker intensity induces two-photon absorption resulting in the decolorization. The spatial patterning concomitant with higher-order multiphoton absorption processes was also demonstrated.