Nondestructive Probing of a Photoswitchable Dithienylethene Coupled to Plasmonic Nanostructures

Titelangaben

Schörner, Christian ; Wolf, Daniela ; Schumacher, Thorsten ; Bauer, Peter ; Thelakkat, Mukundan ; Lippitz, Markus:
Nondestructive Probing of a Photoswitchable Dithienylethene Coupled to Plasmonic Nanostructures.
In: The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. Bd. 121 (2017) Heft 30 . - S. 16528-16532.
ISSN 1932-7455
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b05558

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Abstract

We demonstrate read-out of the conformational state of photoswitchable molecules, without modifying that state by the read-out process itself. The ring-opening and ring-closing reaction do not only change the absorption spectrum of a molecular layer, but also its index of refraction. A thin layer of a dithienylethene derivative was combined with well-designed gold nanostructures. The particle plasmon resonance of these nanostructures is extremely sensitive to the photoinduced change in the environment and can therefore be used to probe the state of the photochromic switch. The probing wavelength now interrogates the plasmonic structure, not the molecular film, and can thus be conveniently placed in a transparent spectral range, e.g., the near infrared. We find good agreement between experiments and numerical simulations with regard to spectral signatures of the plasmon resonance.