Jake Greenfield

Check out this new Perspective in Chemical Science from @jiarongwu.bsky.social and @jakeylg.bsky.social (Universitat Würzburg, Germany)!

'Light them up: photoresponsive imine-containing systems'

Read it here for free: doi.org/10.1039/D5SC...

#ChemSciHOT #ChemSky

See the collection on Molecular Motors and Machines:
www.nature.com/collections/... and learn from Curie, Einstein, and Lewis
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
how directionality can be controlled at the molecular level through kinetic asymmetry.

Thanks Subhabrata 😀

Some easter eggs are hidden in the video-game inspired TOC, relating to our groups upcoming move to
@standrewschem.bsky.social

📢New perspective on light responsive imine-based systems out now in @chemicalscience.rsc.org with @jiarongwu.bsky.social 💡🚨🔦 This is part of the 2025 Leading Investigators Collection, Thank you to the reviewers for input 🙏 #hot #photoswitch #imine imineswitch.com
doi.org/10.1039/D5SC...

Thanks Subhabrata, I hope all is well 😀

Thank you Nishant 😀

Yeeee! Thank you Kasper! 😀 I really appreciated the advice you shared when I was in the initial stages of planning this.

📢 🎉🎊 Really honoured to announce that I have been awarded an @erc.europa.eu StG for our project (HeliOS)💡🌞This project will be looking at out-of-equilibrium helical structures... more on this soon... (big thanks to those who helped along the way🙏) imineswitch.com #ERCStG

Thanks you Manuel 😀

Equally, I would like to extend my thanks to the School of Chemistry at St Andrews for all of the organisational support, it's not easy to bring a team and a bunch of chemicals across countries! A special thanks to
Andy Smith and his team for logistical help😀🙏

I couldn't have asked for a better start-up or support than that offered by the Institute for Organic Chemistry in Würzburg🇩🇪 I look forward to maintaining close ties to Würzburg and completing the habilitation.

📢Very excited to announce that our team will be moving to
@standrewschem.bsky.social
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 later this month. I am so very grateful to
@wuerthnergroup.bsky.social
🇩🇪for support over the last 3-years and stoked for our teams future! Check out an updated website at imineswitch.com 🚨🔦💡

Three-state molecular switch based on terarylene photo- or redox-induced reversible isomerisation Multi-addressable molecular photoswitches whose isomerisation can be triggered not only by light, but also by other stimuli are appealing for the development of novel smart materials as well as for br...

Just shortly after the 3rd (😱) anniversary of my PhD defense, a work of my thesis got accepted in @chemicalscience.rsc.org 🚀

If you're interested in dual-responsive #photoswitches, check the link out, it's 💎🔓!

#ChemSky #ChemPubs

I forgot that it had so many paragraphs... 😂 Thanks for posting it!

That was a once in a lifetime thing... I don't think we could handle it again... 😂

Hi Dean, I think I recall your talk but I was not familiar with the field back then and too shy of a PhD student to approach most people back then!
It was exciting enough for me to just be able to attend these talks 😀

Thanks Felix! 😀

That's awesome! We are really honored that you chose to look at our work at your journal club 😀

Only possible with the efforts of the whole imine team :D

Thank you! :D

The reviewers of this paper made some excellent suggestions, pushing us into looking at what happens in DMSO, surprisingly giving some impressive properties due to solvatochromism🙏 We really appreciate the input of these anonymous heroes!🙏

Enhancing the Photoswitching Properties of N-Alkyl Imines N-Alkyl imines are prevalent in dynamic-covalent chemistry and self-assembled structures, yet their E/Z photochromism is often overlooked due to the high-energy light required for isomerization. Here, we present a simple strategy to enhance their photoswitching properties, achieving switching wavelengths and photostationary state distributions comparable to azobenzene. Moreover, we demonstrate that these N-alkyl imines undergo photoisomerization in the condensed phase and exhibit isomer-dependent fluorescence. We anticipate that this study will inspire the design of photoresponsive architectures that operate directly at the dynamic-covalent bond, eliminating the need for dedicated photoswitchable motifs.

🚨📢Improving the photoswitching properties of N-alkyl imines, out now in @jacs.acspublications.org 🤔Insights from our previous work led @jiarongwu.bsky.social, Lasse and I to tune the properties of these N-alkyl systems🛠️, where we also observed isomer-dependent fluorescence!💡🔦 doi.org/10.1021/jacs...

Thank you @deanast.bsky.social for the kind words. We tried our best and think there is still plenty to figure out! (oh, a nice dry Silvaner from Wuerzburg would be my reccomendation 🙂)

Thank you @manu-petros.bsky.social 😊

You are 100% right, it was only towards the end of the work that we realised how lucky we were with the imines we selected!

Thanks Robert, a simple system doing interesting things 😀

Thank you for a great experience overall!

Harnessing light to drive a non-photoresponsive reaction out of equilibrium A light-fueled reaction drives a non-photoresponsive process out of equilibrium. The system features a dynamic-covalent network of four imines: two are photoswitchable and undergo light-driven transimination at 405 nm, while the others are unresponsive. Illumination establishes a non-equilibrium steady state, with feedback between the coupled reactions pushing the system further from equilibrium. This work offers a blueprint for using light to drive non-photoresponsive transiminations away from equilibrium.

Online now: Harnessing light to drive a non-photoresponsive reaction out of equilibrium

As always, many thanks to the useful and constructive comments from the reviewers and those who seen this work along the way🙏