Bimolecular photoactivation of NBD fluorescence

Abstract

The concatenation of a photochemical transformation with a chemical reaction allows the activation of nitrobenzoxadiazole (NBD) fluorescence under optical control. Specifically, the coupling of photoinduced deprotection with nucleophilic substitution converts a nonemissive NBD chromophore into a fluorescent product. These operating principles can evolve into a general mechanism to implement fluorescent switches based on the attractive photophysical properties of NBDs.