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. 2013 Aug 28;135(34):12556-9.
doi: 10.1021/ja4063019. Epub 2013 Aug 14.

Shaping crystals with light: crystal-to-crystal isomerization and photomechanical effect in fluorinated azobenzenes

Oleksandr S Bushuyev  1 , Anna Tomberg, Tomislav Friščić, Christopher J Barrett
Affiliations

Shaping crystals with light: crystal-to-crystal isomerization and photomechanical effect in fluorinated azobenzenes

Oleksandr S Bushuyev et al. J Am Chem Soc. .

Abstract

Unusually long thermal half-lives of perhalogenated cis-azobenzenes enabled their structural characterization and the first evidence of a crystal-to-crystal cis → trans azobenzene isomerization. Irradiation with visible light transforms a perhalogenated cis-azobenzene single crystal into a polycrystalline aggregate of its trans-isomer in a photomechanical transformation that involves a significant, controllable, and thermally irreversible change of crystal shape. This is the first demonstration of permanent photomechanical modification of crystal shape in an azobenzene.

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