Multi-input photonic molecular logic gates based on the styrylpyridine–benzomerocyanine dyad

Abstract

The efficiency of interphotochromic energy transfer in the biphotochromic styrylpyridine−benzomerocyanine dyad is 66% due to spatial and spectral separation of two photochromes. Therefore, both photochromes conserve their ability to photoisomerization. By using the photoisomerization of the photochromes for switching between different photostationary states, it has been shown that the dyad can function as photonic three- and four-input molecular logic gates, particularly a 4-to-2 encoder and a parity checker.