Isothermal Chirality Switching in Liquid-Crystalline Azobenzene Compounds with Non-Polarized Light

Mohamed Alaasar; Silvio Poppe; Qingshu Dong; Feng Liu; Carsten Tschierske

doi:10.1002/anie.201705559

Isothermal Chirality Switching in Liquid-Crystalline Azobenzene Compounds with Non-Polarized Light

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2017 Aug 28;56(36):10801-10805. doi: 10.1002/anie.201705559. Epub 2017 Aug 7.

Authors

Mohamed Alaasar^{1

2}, Silvio Poppe¹, Qingshu Dong³, Feng Liu³, Carsten Tschierske¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Chemistry, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Kurt-Mothes Str. 2, 06120, Halle/Saale, Germany.
² Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, P.O., 12613, Giza, Egypt.
³ State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, P.R. China.

PMID: 28719108
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201705559

Abstract

Spontaneous mirror-symmetry breaking is a fundamental process for development of chirality in natural and in artificial self-assembled systems. A series of triple chain azobenzene based rod-like compounds is investigated that show mirror-symmetry breaking in an isotropic liquid occurring adjacent to a lamellar LC phase. The transition between the lamellar phase and the symmetry-broken liquid is affected by trans-cis photoisomerization, which allows a fast and reversible photoinduced switching between chiral and achiral states with non-polarized light.

Keywords: azobenzene; chirality; liquid crystals; mirror-symmetry breaking; photoisomerization.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't