Diarylethenes (DAE), a class of best performing photoswitchable compounds, where the key features of stability, photoisomerization wavelengths, quantum yield and variability in the photoisomers significantly depend on their derivatization. The last decade has witnessed a surge in the engagement of DAEs to different areas of chemical and biological impacts like catalysis in synthetic organic chemistry, biological markers for in vivo imaging of live cells, chemosensing within cells to photo‐dynamic therapy by controlled generation of singlet oxygen. Previous reviews on applications of DAE‐based systems did not predominantly cover all the aspects of biological and industrial implementations. They have covered only one field of application either in the biological science or the synthetic aspect or photochromic aspects only. This review is a coalition of all those aspects in last six years. Here the variation of properties of the DAE systems with respect to structural diversifications have been discussed in detail along with their potential applications in catalysis, regulating singlet oxygen generation, photodynamic therapy, bioimaging and their future prospects. We hope that this review will certainly motivate researchers to generate new DAE architectures with superior bioimaging or catalyzing properties in future.

中文翻译：

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二芳基乙烯基光开关材料的最新进展：在生物成像、光动力治疗和催化中的受控单线态氧生成中的应用

二芳基乙烯 (DAE) 是一类性能最佳的光可切换化合物，其稳定性、光异构化波长、量子产率和光异构体的可变性等关键特征很大程度上取决于它们的衍生化。在过去的十年中，DAE 在化学和生物影响的不同领域的参与激增，例如合成有机化学中的催化、活细胞体内成像的生物标记、细胞内化学传感以及通过控制单线态生成进行光动力治疗氧。之前对基于 DAE 的系统应用的评论并未主要涵盖生物和工业实施的所有方面。它们只涵盖了生物科学或合成方面或光致变色方面的一个应用领域。这次审查是过去六年中所有这些方面的结合。这里详细讨论了 DAE 系统在结构多样化方面的性能变化，以及它们在催化、调节单线态氧生成、光动力治疗、生物成像方面的潜在应用及其未来前景。我们希望这篇综述一定会激励研究人员在未来生成具有卓越生物成像或催化特性的新 DAE 架构。