A fluoride-selective colorimetric and fluorescent chemosensor and its use for the design of molecular-scale logic devices

A simple and efficient chemosensor 1 was synthesized by reacting thiosernicarbazide with 1-naphthaldehyde. It was found that the sensor is highly selective toward fluoride anions in both UV-vis and fluorescence channels in DMSO solution. Especially, the spectral responses of the sensor along with a visible color change can be switched back and forth by successively adding F- and HSO4- anions into the DMSO solution, which may be represented by a complementary IMPLICATION/INHIBIT logic gate at molecular level employing both the ions as the chemical inputs. Based on such a reversible and reproducible sensing system, we designed a molecular-scale sequential memory unit displaying Writing-Reading-Erasing-Reading and Multi-write functions in the form of binary logic. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.