photoswitching system based on a spiropyran–polythiophene
conjugate. Thus, UV irradiation of a solution containing the
photochromic polymer results in a drastic decrease in fluorescence
intensity owing to effective FRET. The fluorescence intensity is
recovered by visible light irradiation of the solution. The
spiropyran–polythiophene conjugate system can also be used to
detect cyanide anion in a highly selective and sensitive manner.
The authors gratefully thank National Research Foundation
of Korea for financial support through Basic Science Research
Program (20090083161), Center for Next Generation Dye-
sensitized Solar cells (2009–0063368), and International
Research & Development Program (K20901000006-09E0100-
00610).
Scheme 3 Reaction between MC form of the spiropyran and cyanide
anion.
transformed to the MC form by UV-irradiation. We also
thought that the significant hypsochromic shift associated with
adduct formation would render the CN adduct incapable of
quenching efficiently the fluorescence emitted from polythio-
phene backbone. Thus, unlike the colorimetric CN sensor
reported by Shiraishi, the spiropyran–polythiophene
conjugate system would allow fluorescence-based detection
of cyanide anion.31
Notes and references
1 G. H. Brown, Photochromism, Wiely-Interscience, New York, 1971.
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2 Organo
photochromic
and
Thermochromic
In order to test this proposal, THF solutions (0.1 mM) of
P(TSP/3HT) containing various anions were irradiated with
365 nm UV light for 2 min and their fluorescence intensities
were monitored (Fig. 4). Interestingly, the degree of the
fluorescence quenching promoted by irradiation of the
solution containing cyanide anion is much smaller than that
caused by other anions or that monitored in the absence of
anions (Ctrl). In fact, no significant differences in the fluores-
cence quenching behavior of the polymer were seen when
other ions, such as fluoride, chloride, bromide, or nitrate, were
present. In addition, the color of the cyanide containing
polymer solution becomes yellow after 2 min irradiation while
the blue color of the solution remains unchanged or only
slightly changed when other anions are present. Greater than
90% of the initial fluorescence intensity is maintained when
the concentration of cyanide anion is 40.5 mM, indicating
that most of the spiropyran moieties form adducts upon
UV-irradiation in the presence of cyanide (Fig. 4, inset).
The detection limit for cyanide anion was determined to be
ca. 10 mM (Fig. 4, inset and Fig. S1, ESIw).
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Fig. 4 Emission spectra of P(TSP/3HT) (0.1 mM in THF) monitored
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ꢁc
This journal is The Royal Society of Chemistry 2010
Chem. Commun., 2010, 46, 2859–2861 | 2861