ALL-OPTICAL FUNCTIONAL MOLECULAR MATERIALS – PhotoControl

The development of new functional molecular materials based on photo-active molecules is a high priority strategic research field in this century. Notably, those dedicated to data storage and processing attract increasable attention in academic and industrial research, driven by economic and energy consumption issues. In fact, with global data traffic more than doubling every four years, data centers are coming under scrutiny. The solution is twofold: look to renewable sources for energy consumption and bring about a major improvement in the energy efficiency of data servers and storage devices. The PhotoControl project plans to tackle this latter point by providing new functional molecular materials and so offers a credible alternative. In this original approach, light is used as sole and unique external vector to write, store, transport and read the information on photoresponsive organized arrays of photochromic metal complexes, grafted onto surfaces. The originality of this approach is settling on accurate combination of photochromism and nonlinear optics (NLO) and allows to get rid of the loss-of-symmetry phenomenon with time while preserving the high NLO contrasts upon photochromism. The methodology relies on the surface-grafting of a chosen azido terminated metal complex to an alkyne pre-functionalized surface by azide-alkyne click-conjugation. The alkyne pre-functionalized surface can be readily obtained according to a proven method and the easy to implement azide-alkyne click-reaction can be conducted with a variety of chromophoric partners. With this scenario in mind, the methodology will be first clearly delineated and then the project will evolved in three different tasks: Task 1 - will bring along the proof of concept with the first preparation of functionalized surfaces. Task 2 - is the declination of task 1 in a chiral version with the introducing of the chirality on the chromophores. Task 3 - aims at transposing this approach to more abundant metal to provide a more eco-friendly functional molecular material. The photophysical properties of all these new systems will be investigated by means of absorption, photochromism, luminescence and nonlinear optics, in solution and in the surfaces. The morphology of the surfaces will be also characterized by AFM, ellipsometry and XPS with a particular attention on the molecular arrangement in presence of chiral complexes.
This project would represent a real breakthrough in the field of NLO-phore materials as it will pave the way of the future functional molecular materials dedicated to data storage and processing. Increase experimental and fundamental knowledge regarding the optical properties on surface of molecular material will allow for discoveries and development of innovative technologies that will resonate both at academic and industrial levels.