Investigation of the molecular switching process between spin crossover states of triazole complexes as basis for optical sensing applications.

With the advent of the first laser sources and suitable detectors, optical sensor applications immediately also came into focus. During the last decades, a huge variety of optical sensor concepts were developed, yet the forecast for the future application potential appears even larger. In this context, the development of new sensor probes at different scales down to the atomic or molecular level open new avenues for research and development. We investigated an iron based triazole molecular spin-crossover complex changing its absorption characteristics significantly by varying environmental parameters such as humidity, temperature, magnetic or electric field, respectively, with respect to its suitability for a new class of versatile molecular sensor probes. Hereby, besides the investigation of synthesized pure bulk material using different analyzing methods, we also studied amorphous micro particles which were applied in or onto optical waveguide structures. We found that significant changes of the reflection spectra can also be obtained after combining the particles with different types of optical waveguides.The obtained results demonstrate the suitability of the material complex for a broad field of future sensor applications.

Incorporation and Deposition of Spin Crossover Materials into and onto Electrospun Nanofibers.

We synthesized iron(II)-triazole spin crossover compounds of the type [Fe(atrz)3]X2 and incorporated and deposited them on electrospun polymer nanofibers. For this, we used two separate electrospinning methods with the goal of obtaining polymer complex composites with intact switching properties. In view of possible applications, we chose iron(II)-triazole-complexes that are known to exhibit spin crossover close to ambient temperature. Therefore, we used the complexes [Fe(atrz)3]Cl2 and [Fe(atrz)3](2ns)2 (2ns = 2-Naphthalenesulfonate) and deposited those on fibers of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and incorporated them into core-shell-like PMMA fiber structures. These core-shell structures showed to be inert to outer environmental influences, such as droplets of water, which we purposely cast on the fiber structure, and it did not rinse away the used complex. We analyzed both the complexes and the composites with IR-, UV/Vis, Mössbauer spectroscopy, SQUID magnetometry, as well as SEM and EDX imaging. The analysis via UV/Vis spectroscopy, Mössbauer spectroscopy, and temperature-dependent magnetic measurements with the SQUID magnetometer showed that the spin crossover properties were maintained and were not changed after the electrospinning processes.