Highly-stable red-emissive photochromic nanoparticles based on a diarylethene-perylenebisimide dyad

Abstract Design and synthesis of highly-stable red-emissive photochromic nanoparticles (NPs) are essential tasks for the development of next-generation microscopic technologies. In this scope, we have prepared red-emissive photochromic NPs based on a diarylethene-perylenebisimide (DAE-PBI) dyad. In order to achieve both high fluorescence and outstanding photostability in the NP state, the fluorescence properties of PBI fluorophores having bulky substituents at the bay-positions were investigated in solution as well as in the NP state. The prepared DAE-PBI dyad shows bright red emission, complete ON-OFF contrast with nonlinear photoswitching response, and excellent photostability in the NP state. In addition, the fluorescence photoswitching property and the photostability at the single NP level was investigated under fluorescence microscope.