Liquid crystals composed of photoactive groups, such as azobenzene, are promising materials for optical switching and image storage applications. On exposure to light LC materials commonly undergo an order-to disorder transition. Here, an unusual disorder-to-order transition is presented (the Figure shows a photo-induced smectic texture surrounded by a nematic phase), and a photo-controlled nanophase segregation mechanism is invoked to explain it.
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Prasad et al. (2001) studied this question.