Nanooptomechanical Transduction in a Single Crystal with 100% Photoconversion

Materials that exhibit
nanooptomechanical transduction in their
single-crystal form have prospective use in light-driven molecular
machinery, nanotechnology, and quantum computing. Linkage photoisomerization
is typically the source of such transduction in coordination complexes,
although the isomers tend to undergo only partial photoconversion.
We present a nanooptomechanical transducer, trans-[Ru­(SO2)­(NH3)4(3-bromopyridine)]­tosylate2, whose S-bound η1-SO2 isomer
fully converts into an O-bound η1-OSO photoisomer
that is metastable while kept at 100 K. Its 100% photoconversion is
confirmed structurally via photocrystallography, while single-crystal
optical absorption and Raman spectroscopies reveal its metal-to-ligand
charge-transfer and temperature-dependent characteristics. This perfect
optical switching affords the material good prospects for nanooptomechanical
transduction with single-photon control.