Hybrid Photochromic Lanthanide Phosphonate with Multiple Photoresponsive Functionalities

Hybrid photochromic materials (HPMs) with specific photoresponsive functionality have applications in many fields. The photoinduced electron-transfer (ET) strategy has been proved to be effective in the synthesis of HPMs with diverse photomodulated properties. The exploitation of new electron acceptors (EAs) is meaningful for promoting the development of HPMs. In this work, we introduced a rigid tetraimidazole derivative, 3,3,5,5-tetra(imidazol-1-yl)-1,1-biphenyl (TIBP) as a potential EA, into a metal-diphosphonate (1-hydroxyethylidene-1,1-diphosphonic acid, H-4-HEDP) system to explore HPMs and finally obtained a hybrid metal phosphonate (H-4-TIBP)(0.5)middot[Dy(H-HEDP) (H-2-HEDP)]middotH(2)O (1). 1 features anionic chains composed of diphosphonate and Dy3+ ions. The extra charge is balanced by protonated TIBP cations, which exist in the void of adjacent chains and form H-bonds with O-phosphonate (N-HmiddotmiddotmiddotO). Upon photostimulation with a Xe lamp (300 W), the crystalline sample 1 exhibited coloration by changing from colorless to pale yellow because of the presence of photoinduced radicals that originated from the ET from O-phosphonate to N-TIBP. Along with the coloration, photomodulated fluorescence, magnetism, and proton conductivity were also detected in the photoactivated samples. Different from the reported HPMs based on polypyridine derivatives and photoactive species such as pyridinium and naphthalimide derivatives as EAs, our study provides a new category of EA units to yield HPMs with fascinating photoresponsive functionality via the assembly of polyimidazole derivatives and phosphonate-based supramolecular building blocks

Automated summary

Hybrid photochromic materials with specific photoresponsive functionality have various applications. In this study, a new electron acceptor was introduced and a hybrid metal phosphonate with fascinating photoresponsive functionality was synthesized.