Project description
Optical switches and storage devices could benefit from light-driven spin-crossover molecules
Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the Photo SCO LCs project aims to develop soft magnetic materials that combine spin crossover, photochromism and a liquid crystal phase. Using an external stimulus (e.g. temperature, light or pressure), researchers will cause a spin transition to the so-called Fe(II) spin crossover molecule. The molecule will then be decorated with long alkyl chains covalently inserted by the azobenzene that displays both liquid crystal and photochromic properties. The reversible cis–trans conformational change of the photochromic unit should affect the coordination sphere of the Fe(II) centre and should cause a ligand-driven light-induced spin change. The newly fabricated materials could find use in optical storage devices and optical switch prototypes.
Objective
This proposal aims at developing a series of photoresponsive magnetic soft materials through the combination of spincrossover (SCO) property, photochromic property and liquid crystal (LC) property in a single material. The SCO property comes from the switchable electronic state between high-spin (HS, S = 2) and low-spin (LS, S = 0) state of the Fe(II) center in an octahedral coordination sphere under an external stimuli (e.g. temperature, light and pressure) and display an interconversion between diamagnetism and paramagnetism. The SCO molecules will be further decorated with long alkyl chains, which are covalently inserted by azobenzene group as photochromic unit, to display both LC and photochromic properties. The reversible cis/trans conformational change of photochromic unit is expected to change the coordination sphere of Fe(II) center and intermolecular interactions in LC systems, thus tuning the ligand field and SCO cooperativity and giving novel ligand-driven light-induced spin change effect (LD LISC) behavior. Moreover, if compared to traditional solid crystalline materials, the obtained materials will show superior characteristics, such as reversibility, faster response, and improved fabricability, allowed by the flexible nature of LCs. The obtained photoresponsive SCO LC materials will have multidisciplinary applications in prototypes of optical memory devices, displays, sensors, and switches, etc. The proposal designed by the researcher and host will make a contribution and promotion in the development of multifunctional molecular magnets, especially of photomagnetic materials.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcrystals
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringliquid crystals
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
75794 Paris
France