The effect of addition of fluorescent moieties to dihydropyrenes: enhancing photochromicity and fluorescence monitoring

A series of dihydropyrenes with appending fluorescent moieties were synthesized with the objective of increasing the photochromic efficiency for this class of compounds and to establish how suitable fluorescence would be to follow their photochromic behavior. The ring opening quantum yields of dihydropyrenes with aroyl substituents at the 4-position showed increased ring opening quantum yields without a decrease of the half-life for the thermal reversion of the less stable open isomer, the metacyclophanediene to the dihydropyrene. The fluorescence of the appending naphthoyl or pyrenoyl moieties was not suitable to follow the photochromic cycling of the dihydropyrenes. However, the emission detected above 600 nm of the closed isomer of the dihydropyrene moiety was shown to be a good monitoring method for the photochromic cycling.