Sterically Hindered Diarylethenes: Enantiospecific Transformation and Reversible Photo-Superstructures

Abstract

Dynamic chiral materials with non-contactable, light-activated, and reversible features, have attracted considerable attention in photoprogrammable liquid crystals and chiral optoelectronic devices. However, most attempts to construct three-dimensional (3D) supramolecular chiral nanocages are limited to using nonresponsive chiral building blocks, which often results in the formation of architectures in shortage of tunable capacity, especially for the desirable dynamic, photo-responsive, and reversible chirality modulation. The speaker reports the construction of the first photoswitchable intrinsic chiral metallcages, (P)- and (M)-MOC1 and MOC2 based on sterically hindered diarylethene-based subcomponents, thereby achieving the unique light-driven reversible enantiospecific transformation between axial helicity and central asymmetry in three-dimensional cages. Given the increasing cage tension during the cyclization process, the implanting chiral photoswitches adopt a stepwise conversion mechanism, resulting in their precise chiral conformational changes during the reversible cyclization and cycloreversion process. Additionally, these discrete metallacages can be explored as a chiral encapsulant in nanocavity windows, and possess prominent enantioselectivity toward a pair of chiral camphor sulfonate guests. This work opens a new avenue to construct the unprecedented light-activated intrinsic chiral metallacages, aiming at their potential applications for chiral recognition, separation, and asymmetric catalysis.

About the Speaker

Prof. ZHU Wei-Hong is an Academian of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a Professor at East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), China. He is serving as the Vice-President of ECUST and the Director of Institute of Fine Chemicals. He received his BS from Nanjing Normal University in 1992, MS from Nankai University in 1995 and PhD from ECUST in 1999. He worked in National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) as postdoctoral fellow from 2001 to 2003.  He was a Visiting Professor in University of Tsukuba from 2004 to 2005 and became a Professor in 2004. His current research interests are focused on photosensitive chemical products engineering. He has published more than 380 papers with H-index of 91, and received NSFC for Distinguished Young Scholars in 2013, Cheung Kong Distinguished Professor by the Education Ministry of China in 2015, Second Class Prizes of National Natural Science Award, First Class Prizes of Shanghai Natural Science Award and First Class Prize of Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Award.

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