Planar chiral azobenzenophanes as chiroptic switches for photon mode reversible reflection color control in induced chiral nematic liquid crystals

A planar chiral photoresponsive compound is used in commercially available nematic liquid crystals to achieve phototunable reflection colors and an azobenzenophane compound is designed. A unique feature of these chiral photochromic compounds is that both the hypsochromic and bathochromic shift can be obtained from a single LC formulation by reversible photoisomerization of the single chiral compound.