Design of photochromic and electrochemical active azosilane self-assembled monolayer

摘要

THE electrochemical and/or photochemical active organic molecules have attracted much attention due to their potential applications in the field of molecular electronics. The azobenzene derivatives have been widely studied as typical systems, owing totheir reversible trans-cis iso-merization and reduction/oxidation reactions (see fig. l(a)). We have studied the characteristic photochromic and electrochemical behavior of azobenzene Langmuir-Blodgett mono-layer on ITO substrates, and proposed a novel"one way, three-states" information storage mechanism. The interaction between the adsorbate molecules and the substrate is physi-cosorption in the LB films, which leads to the instability of the monolayer when undergoing electrochemical or photochromicreactions. On the other hand, the area-increased isomerlza-tion is always inhibited by the rigid monolayer structure, and shows a low isomerization rate. In this note, we report the design of a novel azosilane self-assembled monolayer (SAM) on quartz and/or ITO substrates, which shows efficient photochromic property and unique electrochemical redox behavior.