A solar actuator based on hydrogen-bonded azopolymers for electricity generation

Abstract

An actuator driven by solar light is developed by incorporating an azo compound (F-Azo) into agarose (AG). The resulting F-Azo-doped AG (F-Azo@AG) films bend under sunlight irradiation. It is demonstrated that the sunlight-induced bending of the F-Azo@AG film transduces the sunlight into electricity when attached to a piezoelectric transducer.