Photo?Responsive Water Filtration Membranes Based on Polymerizable Columnar Liquid Crystals with Azo Moieties

Photoresponsive liquid crystals based on halogen bonding of azopyridines.

A series of photoresponsive halogen-bonded liquid crystals (LCs) were successfully constructed using molecular halogen and azopyridine compounds, which show interesting properties of photoinduced phase transition upon UV irradiation. In addition, bromine-bonded LCs were first obtained with high mesophase stability.

Photoresponsive ionic liquid crystals based on azobenzene guanidinium salts.

The use of non-ionic LC phases as anisotropic matrices for E/Z-isomerization of azo-guest molecules is often restricted due to limited solubilities and demixing effects. In this study we therefore employed an ionic liquid crystal (ILC) matrix to follow the photo-induced E/Z-isomerization of ionic mesogenic azobenzene guanidinium guests. The latter were prepared from 4-hydroxy-4'-(octyloxy)azobe...

Dielectric Investigations on Ferroelectric Columnar Liquid Crystals

Photoresponsive nanoscale columnar transistors.

This study reports a general methodology for making stable high-performance photosensitive field effect transistors (FET) from self-assembled columns of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by using single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) as point contacts. In particular, the molecules used in this work are liquid crystalline materials of tetra(dodecyloxy)hexabenzocoronenes (HBCs) that are able to s...

A helical naphthopyran dopant for photoresponsive cholesteric liquid crystals.

The first photoresponsive cholesteric liquid crystal comprising a photoisomerizable helical naphthopyran derivative dopant and a nematic liquid crystal is reported. An unprecedented helical twisting power switching ratio of over 90% allowed us to demonstrate multi-cycle rotational motion of micro-objects by UV light irradiation.