Valency‐Controlled Multiphotochromism: Gated Switching and Photoswitchable Lewis Superacidity at Silicon
Lennart Stoess, Valentin D. Hannibal, Lutz Greb · 2026
Read Valency‐Controlled Multiphotochromism: Gated Switching and Photoswitchable Lewis Superacidity at Silicon by Lennart Stoess, Valentin D. Hannibal, Lutz Greb (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13452506.txt.
Description
Stoess, Hannibal, and Greb show that a silicon atom's coordination number can act as a switchboard for molecules carrying two light-responsive units, a route toward multistate information storage beyond simple on-off photochromism. Their two silicon-based diarylethene Lewis acids close their rings one at a time under light, with coupling between the units changing as silicon binds four or five partners.
Adding a donor molecule let the team select single ring closure only, activate switching by wavelength, or shut photoreactivity off entirely, depending on which base was bound to the silicon center. Without donors, each closure step strengthened the molecule's Lewis acidity, culminating in the first photoswitchable Lewis superacid reported. Reversible silicon-nitrogen and silicon-oxygen bond swapping also let them reach switching-state distributions that pure photochemistry cannot exceed statistically. The authors establish valency control as a design rule for multiphotochromic systems.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Lennart Stoess, Valentin D. Hannibal, Lutz Greb |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 29 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |