Research Areas

Historically, imine (aldimine)-based photoswitches have been overlooked due to their poor performance. Limitations included low conversion to metastable isomers, the requirement for high-energy light, and short-lived metastable states, all of which hindered characterisation and applications. Since establishing the group in April 2023, we have addressed these challenges by achieving quantitative conversion to metastable isomers, developing visible-light-responsive imines, and realising thermal half-lives of metastable states exceeding one day at room temperature. This latter achievement enabled the first crystallisation of an imine in the metastable Z-state, now recorded in the CCDC.

We continue to explore imine-based photoswitches and employ them as accessible tools to realise light-driven functions.

Light can be used as an energy source to drive systems away from equilibrium. We are exploring how our recently developed imine-based photoswitches can be perturbed under irradiation. Constructing systems with competing amines enables transimination, a type of dynamic exchange reaction. Under light irradiation, we observed that such systems can be driven into higher-energy states by functioning as an information ratchet.

Building on this discovery, we have demonstrated how light can perturb non-photoresponsive imines out of equilibrium by constructing reaction cascades. This is now a highly active area of research in our group.

Achieving long/polymeric helices with precise control over pitch, handedness, and defect density remains a key challenge. We develop programmable monomer designs and dynamic-covalent strategies that translate molecular level information into mesoscale order. Our platforms emphasize reversibility, error-correction, and orthogonal stimuli to enable hierarchical assembly on demand.