Selective and Sequential Photorelease Using Molecular Switches

Abstract

Effective release mechanism: Low-energy visible light is used to convert thermally stable cyclic dithienylethene derivatives 1 into thermally unstable forms 2 that undergo spontaneous fragmentation. The photoresponsive architecture is rationally designed so that one, the other, or both of two systems in a mixture can be selectively stimulated with different light sources to release their “loads”.