Synthesis and Photochromism Studies of 1-(3,5-dimethyl-4-isoxazole)-2-[2-methyl-5-naphthyl-3-thienyl] perfluorocyclopentene

A new class of unsymmetrical photochromic diarylethene bearing an isoxazole moiety was synthesized. Its photochemical properties, including photochromic behavior and kinetics, have been investigated systematically. The result indicated that the Diarylethene 1a changed the color from colorless to pink irradiation with 297 nm UV light, in which absorption maxima were observed at 522 nm in hexane. The photochromic reaction kinetics indicated that the cyclization processes of 1a belong to the zeroth order reaction and the cycloreversion process belong to the first order reaction.