Fully Reversible Multistate Fluorescence Switching: Organogel System Consisting of Luminescent Cyanostilbene and Turn-On Diarylethene

Multicolor tunable and multistate switchable organogel is reported, which consists of a cyanostilbene organogelator showing aggregation-induced enhanced emission and a turn-on type photochromic diarylethene dye. The mixed organogel can be reversibly switched among four different states (blue-emitting gel, nonemissive sol, green-emitting gel, and green-emitting sol) modulated by a combination of orthogonal stimuli of heat and light. It is interestingly noted that this four-state switching constitutes a combinational logic circuit consisting of two stimuli inputs and three outputs. Reversible fluorescence writing, switching, erasing, and image patterning processes on this mixture gel system are demonstrated.