Individual photoreorientation of non-aggregated and aggregated azobenzene side chains tethered to a liquid-crystalline polymer determined by higher order derivative spectra

Abstract

Higher order derivative spectra were applied to UV-VIS spectral changes of a liquid-crystalline polymer with azobenzene side chains exposed to linearly polarised 436 nm light at an elevated temperature to reveal the participation of non-aggregated as well as two types of aggregated species in in-plane as well as out-of-plane photoreorientation individually.