A novel photochromic and electrochromic europium tetraaza porphyrinato and phthalocyaninato heteroleptic double-decker for information storage

A novel tetraazaporphyrinato and phthalocyaninato mixed heteroleptic double-decker sandwich rare-earth compound with photochromic and electrochromic features has been facilely synthesized by one-pot reaction using Eu(acac)(3)center dot nH(2)O, metal-free phthalocyanine H2Pc' (Pc' = 2,3,9,10,16,17,23,24-octakis(decyloxy) phthalocyanine), and the photochromic precursor 1,2-dicyanol, 2-bis(2,3,5-trimethyl-3-thienyl) ethane as starting materials. The compound was well characterized by elemental analysis and various spectroscopic methods including UV-vis, IR, H-1 NMR, and mass spectroscopies. The electrochemical behavior of this compound was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) methods, which showed up to three one-electron oxidation and four one-electron reduction processes, demonstrating an electro-active compound for high-density information storage. The photochromic performance of the compound was detected by electronic absorption spectra, suggesting the compound to be a good candidate for non-destructive readout by means of UV-vis spectroscopy.