Excitation wavelength as logic operator.

Abstract

Multiple molecular logic gates were harvested on a single synthesized material, (E)-2-(2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzylideneamino)phenol (MBAP), by combining excitation wavelength dependent multi-channel fluorescence outputs and the same chemical inputs. Interestingly, the effortless switching of logic behavior was achieved by simply tweaking the excitation wavelength and sometimes the emission wavelengths with no alteration of chemical inputs and the main device molecule, MBAP. Additionally, new generation purely optically driven memory units were designed on the same system supporting an almost infinite number of write-erase cycles since inter-conversion of memory states was completely free from chemical interferences and impurity issues. Two-way memory functions ("erase-read-write-read" and "write-read-erase-read") worked simultaneously on the same system and could be accessed by simple optical switching between two excitation and emission wavelengths. Our optically switchable device might outperform traditional multifunctional logic gates and memory devices that generally employ chemical triggers to switch functionality and memory states. These optically switchable multifunctional molecular logic gates and memory systems might drive smart devices in the near future with high energy efficiency, extended life span, structural and functional simplicity, exclusive reversibility and enhanced data storage density.