The ultrafast photoinduced ring-closing dynamics of a furan-based difurylethene (YnPhT) has been investigated by femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. We performed time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations to explain the experimental results in detail. The sub-picosecond time scale of the ring-closing reaction is comparable with thiophene-based analogues, but oxygen atoms at the photochromic core can avoid adverse interaction between switches and metal contacts in further applications. This observation proves that furan-based diarylethenes are potential optoelectronic elements with an ultrafast optical response. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.