Opening the door to the development of molecular chips

Structural changes in photoswitches are usually manifested as alterations of their macroscopic properties. When exposed to light of certain parameters, a molecule can, for example, change its colour, which can even be visible to the naked eye. For instance, blue can turn into yellow and vice versa, and the two colours can be treated as zeroes and ones, respectively. Individual molecules thus function in the same way as memory bits and are also easy to read. "There is, however, one difference, namely that thanks to their minuscule size they can store an order of magnitude more information than silicon-based chips," says Dr Tomáš Slanina, pointing out that: "This all works only with photoswitches that are stable enough so as not to switch between individual states spontaneously in the absence of light. It was this very requirement which has so far been so difficult to meet, so experts had never even attempted to achieve a transition into a third state within one molecule. This is only possible thanks to our current discovery."

Upon the transition from the second state to the third, it is not the colour, but the geometry of the molecule that changes significantly. This is especially convenient whenever it is suitable to ‘shape’ a molecule so that it either fits into a target active centre or, conversely, so that it is pushed out of it. All this is triggered by a light pulse of a specific wavelength. The range of possible practical applications is wide. However, because it is such a recent discovery, experts are only beginning to discover its potential.

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