Cyclobutane-cleavage of anti-head-to-head coumarin and quinolinone homo- and cross-dimers via single- and two-photon-absorption photochemistry

Abstract The light-driven cleavage of cyclobutane containing systems via [2 + 2] cycloreversion, such as di-coumarin, is an important yet poorly investigated photochemical reaction. Its applications can be found in smart crosslinking polymers or light-activated drug release. We report the increased cleavage efficiencies of the coumarins lactam analog quinolinone for single-photon as well as two-photon-absorption experiments. To investigate the structure-function relationship of the molecular substitution pattern and its influence on the photoactivity, a coumarin-quinolinone cross-dimer was synthesized and investigated towards its cleavage efficiencies in single-photon as well as two-photon photocleavage. The cross-dimer shows a lower cleavage efficiency than both homo-dimers. The presented results are of interest, e.g., for applications utilizing highly efficient cleavage reactions in symmetric or asymmetric molecular frameworks.