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ABSTRACT
Dendrimers with azo moieties in their peripherals (azodendrimers), which we developed, are useful as a photoactive interface for liquid crystal (LC) systems. The azodendrimer spontaneously adsorbs on a variety of interfaces, so that we can obtain photoactive surfaces without pretreatment only by introducing a small amount of the azodendrimers in LCs. We first describe our previous studies applied for a variety of LC systems such as sandwich cells, LC droplets and shells in a solvent and microparticles in LCs. Some unpublished results on nematic droplets of bent-shaped molecules demonstrate current developments in the research of the interactions between the photoswitchable dendrimer and complex liquid crystalline structures.
Graphical Abstract
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge all co-authors of our previous papers related to the azodendrimer studies. AE acknowledge German Science Foundation DFG Project ER467/8-2 and Prof. Ralf Stannarius for support and discussions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.