Photoswitchable turn-on mode fluorescent molecules have been so far successfully used in super-resolution fluorescence microscopies. Here, we report on fluorescence photoswitching of 1,2-bis(2-ethyl-6-phenyl-1-benzothiophene-1,1-dioxide-3-yl)perfluorocyclopentene (1) by irradiation with single-wavelength visible (420 nm < λ < 470 nm) light, the wavelength of which is longer than the 0-0 transition of open-ring isomer 1a, without UV light excitation. By absorbing very weak hot bands or Urbach tails 1a underwent a cyclization reaction to produce fluorescent closed-ring isomer 1b. Both cyclization and cycloreversion reactions of 1 took place with the visible light in the far off-resonance region of the absorption edge. Based on numerical simulations of the formation process of 1b from 1a by irradiation with 450 nm light, weak absorption coefficients at 450 nm in n-hexane and CCl4 were estimated to be 0.084 and 0.19 M-1 cm-1, respectively. The reversible fluorescence photoswitching with the single visible light is advantageously applicable to super-resolution fluorescence imaging in biological systems.
We demonstrated one-colour control of activation, excitation and deactivation of a fluorescent diarylethene derivative by using a 532 nm CW laser at a weak output power. This one-colour control method was applied to single-molecule tracking in polymer films over a total duration of a few hours at room temperature and PALM for the nanostructures of polymer systems.
