Dithienylethene-based rotaxanes: synthesis, characterization and properties

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The photochromic materials have been widely applied in many fields. In this article, we report a class of photochromic ammoniums with a dithienylethene backbone. They were utilized as templates to construct mechanically interlocked rotaxanes and pseudorotaxanes showing photo-responsive behavior by template-directed clipping reaction and the threading approach. The structures of novel rotaxanes were well defined. It is worth mentioning that the single crystal structure of [3]rotaxane containing two N-hetero crown ether units was obtained. Their photoisomerization behavior was investigated. These N-hetero crown ether-based rotaxanes displayed good reversibility and similar photochromic behaviors to their corresponding ammoniums when they underwent UV/vis photoirradiation. Interestingly, the cucurbit[6]uril-based pseudorotaxane showed better photoisomerization than its corresponding ammonium and those of N-hetero crown ether-based rotaxanes.