Light‐responsive Surface: Photodeformable Cross‐linked Liquid‐Crystalline Polymers Based on Photochemical Phase Transition

Summary

This chapter mainly describes photoinduced deformation observed in azobenzene‐containing cross‐linked liquid‐crystalline polymers (CLCPs), focusing the attention on the factors affecting photodeformation, deformation forms, and light‐driven soft actuators in both the macro‐ and microscale. It also includes the mechanism of deformation based on photochemical phase transition in CLCPs. The chapter aims to summarize the development of photoinduced behavior of CLCPs and provide an insight into their potential applications as light‐driven devices as well as on the recent progress in this field. In order to make clear the effect of the alignment of the azobenzene moieties on the photoinduced bending behavior of CLCP films, a variety of CLCP films with different alignment are examined. The spacer length of the monomer and cross‐linker is a key factor to bring about a different photoinduced deformation. As a connection of mesogens and main chains, spacer groups play an important role in determining the mesomorphic properties of polymer LCs.