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Wavelength and solvent independent photochemistry: the electrocyclic ring-closure of indolylfulgides

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Abstract

A wavelength and solvent dependent study of a photochromic indolylfulgide is presented. The ring-closure reaction is characterized using stationary and time-resolved spectroscopy with femtosecond time resolution. After excitation into the first excited singlet state (S1) the photoprocesses proceed on ultrafast timescales (0.3–0.45 ps) in both polar and non-polar solvents. Excitation into higher electronic states results in similar reaction kinetics as found for S1 excitation. A simple kinetic scheme can be established for the photoprocesses under all different experimental conditions: as expected from organic textbooks neither the solvent surroundings nor the excitation wavelength strongly alter the reaction scheme. The experimental study demonstrates that the ring-closure reaction of photochromic indolylfulgides can be considered as a very robust photoprocess: this fact may lead to a great variety of different applications where the reaction dynamics of the molecular switch are not disturbed by any surrounding effects.

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Author notes

  1. Thorben Cordes

    Present address: Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Physik–Biophysik, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Amalienstr. 54, D-80799, München, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für BioMolekulare Optik, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Oettigenstr. 67, D-80538, München, Germany

    Thorben Cordes, Teja T. Herzog, Stephan Malkmus, Simone Draxler, Thomas Brust & Markus Braun

  2. Munich Center for Integrated Protein Science CIPSM, München, Germany

    Thorben Cordes, Teja T. Herzog, Stephan Malkmus, Simone Draxler, Thomas Brust & Markus Braun

  3. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St., Miami, FL, 33199, USA

    Jessica A. DiGirolamo & Watson J. Lees

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  1. Thorben Cordes
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  2. Teja T. Herzog
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  3. Stephan Malkmus
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Correspondence to Markus Braun.

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Cordes, T., Herzog, T.T., Malkmus, S. et al. Wavelength and solvent independent photochemistry: the electrocyclic ring-closure of indolylfulgides. Photochem Photobiol Sci 8, 528–534 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1039/b817627b

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