Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 29, 2025

Preparation of Polyoxometalate-based Photo-responsive Membranes for the Photo-activation of Manganese Oxide Catalysts
Published on: August 7, 2018
Versatile Photo/Electricity Responsive Properties of a Coordination Polymer Based on Extended Viologen Ligands
Xiaohan Peng1, Yuchen Shi1, Zhiqiang Zeng1
1Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Abstract:
Responsive chromogenic materials have attracted increasing interest among researchers; however, up until now, few materials have exhibited multifunctional chromogenic properties. The coordination polymers (CPs) provide intriguing platforms to design and construct multifunctional materials. Here, a multifunctional photo/electricity responsive CP named Zn-Oxv, which is based on the "extended viologen" (ExV) ligand, was synthesized. The Zn-Oxv exhibited reversible photochromism, photomodulated fluorescence, electrochromism and electrofluorochromism. Furthermore, we prepared Zn-Oxv thin films and investigated electrochromic (EC) properties of viologen-based CPs for the first time. Zn-Oxv thin films showed excellent EC performance with a rapid switching speed (both coloring and bleaching time within 1 s), high coloration efficiency (102.9 cm2/C) and transmittance change (exceeding 40%). Notably, the Zn-Oxv is by far the fastest CP EC material based on redox-active ligands ever reported, indicating that the viologen-based CPs could open up a new field of materials for EC applications. Therefore, viologen-based CPs are attractive candidates for the design of novel multi-responsive chromogenic materials and EC materials that could promise creative applications in intelligent technology, dynamic displays and smart sensors.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Photochemical Electrocyclic Reactions: Stereochemistry
Selection Rules: Photochemical Activation
Colors and Magnetism
When atoms or molecules absorb light at the proper frequency, their electrons are excited to higher-energy orbitals. For many main group atoms and molecules, the absorbed photons are in the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum, which cannot be detected by the human eye. For coordination compounds, the energy difference between the d orbitals often allows photons in the visible range to be absorbed and emitted, which is seen as colors by the human...
Valence Bond Theory
Metal-Ligand Bonds
In these complexes, transition metals form coordinate covalent bonds, a kind of Lewis acid-base interaction in which both of the electrons in the bond are contributed by a donor (Lewis base) to an electron acceptor (Lewis acid). The Lewis acid in...
Thermal and Photochemical Electrocyclic Reactions: Overview
UV–Vis Spectroscopy of Conjugated Systems
One of the factors influencing λmax is the extent...

