Kinetics of photochromic reactions in condensed phases

A review of kinetic data reported for a few organic photochromic systems is given. The kinetics of processes taking place in solid matrices and in crystals was briefly discussed. The effect of solid matrices manifests itself in the kinetics being controlled by distributions rather than by discrete rate constants. The photochromic reactions often require a substantial free volume to occur, hence they seldom take place in crystals without a destruction of the crystal lattice. The activation energies of thermally driven reactions are in this case related rather to crystal parameters than to the reactions themselves.