Azodendrimers as a photoactive interface for liquid crystals

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 Some unpublished results on nematic droplets of bent-shaped molecules demonstrate current developments in the research of the interactions between the photoswitchable dendrimer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.