Photochromism: All‐Optical Fine‐Tuning of Absorption Band of Diarylethene with Photochromic Acid‐Generating Spiropyran (Advanced Optical Materials 9/2016)

Y. Yokoyama and co-workers demonstrate that upon irradiation with blue light, the spiropyran MC-isomer (bottom/right) is changed to the SP-isomer (top/right), on page 1350. During this process, protons are transferred from SP to the blue diarylethene (DAE)-C (bottom/left) for conversion to DAE-C(H+)2 (top/left). While SP reverts to MC thermally, protons return from DAE-C(H+)2 to MC. Thus, the absorption band position of DAE-C is continuously controlled only by light irradiation of the MC–SP conjugate.