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Progress on photochromic diarylethenes with aggregation induced emission

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Abstract

Among various photochromic compounds, diarylethenes (DAEs) have been widely studied and applied due to their excellent thermal bistability and fatigue resistance. Most researches are focused on the properties and applications of DAEs in solution. However, they meet the problem of fluorescence quenching at high concentration or at solid state which limits their performance in the practical applications. Fortunately, the DAE based photochromic aggregation-induced emission (AIE) materials do well in addressing this problem. This work here reviews the current research progress on the structures, properties and applications of the DAE based photochromic AIE materials and points out some existing problems so as to promote subsequent development of this field in the future.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program (973) of China (Nos. 2015CB755602, and 2013CB 922104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51673077, 51603078, and 21474034), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (HUST: 2016YXMS029, HUST: 2018KFYXKJ C033), the Nature Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2018CFB574) and Director Fund of WNLO (2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Nuo-Hua Xie, Ying Chen, Huan Ye, Chong Li & Ming-Qiang Zhu

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  1. Nuo-Hua Xie
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  2. Ying Chen
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Correspondence to Chong Li.

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Nuo-Hua Xie received his B.S. degree in 2014 from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. In 2014, he joined the energy photoelectron functional laboratory of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and studied in the photoswitching group. His main research interests include near-infrared photoswitching and the self-assembly of terrylenediimide.

Ying Chen received her B.S. degree in 2015 from the Hubei University of Technology and M.S. degree in 2018 from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. Her main research interests include aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and diarylethene related organic functional materials.

Huan Ye received her B.S. degree in 2017 form Qingdao University of Science and Technology, China. She joined the energy photoelectron functional laboratory of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and studied in the photoswitching group. Her main research interests include diarylethene related organic functional materials.

Chong Li received his B.S. degree in 2010 and Ph.D. degree in 2015 from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China. In 2015, he joined Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics as a lecturer. In 2016, he got the “Distinguished Young Scholar of HUST”. His main research interests include novel photochromic molecules with high performance and organic molecular photoswitches for super-resolution imaging and optoelectronic devices.

Ming-Qiang Zhu received his B.S. degree in 1993 and M.S. degree in 1996 from the Wuhan University, China. He received his Ph.D. degree in Peking University in 2001 in macromolecular science and engineering. From 2002 to 2007, he was engaged in postdoctoral research in the department of chemistry of Washington State University and department of bioengineering of Rice University, USA. From 2007 to 2009, he returned to China to serve as a professor of Biomedical Engineering Center at Hunan University. Until now, he is appointed as a professor of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. His main research interests include fluorescence molecular switch and super resolution Imaging, aggregation-induced emission material, and advanced energy materials and devices.

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Xie, NH., Chen, Y., Ye, H. et al. Progress on photochromic diarylethenes with aggregation induced emission. Front. Optoelectron. 11, 317–332 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-018-0839-4

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