Photoisomerization of an azobenzene-containing surfactant within a micelle
- Photosensitive azobenzene-containing surfactants have attracted great attention in past years because they offer a means to control soft-matter transformations with light. At concentrations higher than the critical micelle concentration (CMC), the surfactant molecules aggregate and form micelles, which leads to a slowdown of the photoinduced trans -> cis azobenzene isomerization. Here, we combine nonadiabatic dynamics simulations for the surfactant molecules embedded in the micelles with absorption spectroscopy measurements of micellar solutions to uncover the reasons responsible for the reaction slowdown. Our simulations reveal a decrease of isomerization quantum yields for molecules inside the micelles. We also observe a reduction of extinction coefficients upon micellization. These findings explain the deceleration of the trans -> cis switching in micelles of the azobenzene-containing surfactants.
Author details: | Evgenii TitovORCiDGND, Anjali SharmaORCiDGND, Nino Lomadze, Peter SaalfrankORCiDGND, Svetlana SanterORCiDGND, Marek BekirORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1002/cptc.202100103 |
ISSN: | 2367-0932 |
Title of parent work (English): | ChemPhotoChem |
Publisher: | Wiley-VCH |
Place of publishing: | Weinheim |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2021/07/13 |
Publication year: | 2021 |
Release date: | 2023/01/05 |
Tag: | azobenzene; micelles; photoswitches; rate constants; surface hopping; surfactants |
Volume: | 5 |
Issue: | 10 |
Number of pages: | 7 |
First page: | 926 |
Last Page: | 932 |
Funding institution: | Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)German Research Foundation (DFG) [454020933]; DFGGerman Research Foundation (DFG)European Commission [EXC 2008/1-390540038, SA 1657/17-1]; Projekt DEAL |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie |
Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Chemie | |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 54 Chemie / 540 Chemie und zugeordnete Wissenschaften |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
License (German): | CC-BY-NC - Namensnennung, nicht kommerziell 4.0 International |