Effects of Molecular Structures on Functions of Photomobile Materials Based on Polyurethane Matrix

Abstract

Many studies on crosslinked liquid-crystalline polymer materials have been performed because of their attractive potential in various applications such as artificial muscles; however, remolding of those materials is still difficult due to the crosslinks formed by covalent bonds. Therefore, crosslinks with supramolecular interactions have recently drawn considerable attention because of their substantial contributions to enhancement of the recyclability of those materials. Hence, we intended to develop polyurethane-based photomobile materials and evaluate the influence of their chemical composition on the photoactuation. In this study, we synthesized several types of azobenzene-containing polyurethane composed of varied combination of monomers (diol and diisocyanate) and investigated their photoresponsive behavior.