Photothermal effect of azopyridine compounds and their applications

Abstract

Photothermal effect of azopyridine compounds and their azobenzene analogs were studied systematically. Under the same condition, the azopyridine compounds showed higher photothermal conversion efficiency than their analogs, and both of their photoresponsiveness were greatly accelerated when the intensity of irradiated UV light was higher than 400 mW cm⁻². Two possible applications were proposed for the photothermal effect of azopyridine compounds. One was intelligent stickup technology, and the tensile strength between two glass sides was photocontrolled to be as high as 0.661 MPa. The other was photo-driven movement with bilayer films composed of one A12AzPy/PVA composite film, and photoinduced bending was successfully observed due to volume change caused by the photothermal effect.