Correction: Photoregulative phase change biomaterials showing thermodynamic and mechanical stabilities.

Correction for 'Photoregulative phase change biomaterials showing thermodynamic and mechanical stabilities' by Lei Zhang et al., Nanoscale, 2022, 14, 976-983, https://doi.org/10.1039/D1NR06000G.

Photoregulative phase change biomaterials showing thermodynamic and mchanical stabilities.

Azobenzenes are great photochromic molecules for switching the physical properties of various materials via trans-cis isomerization. However, the UV light resulted cis-azobenzene is metastable and thermodynamically gets back to trans-azobenzene after ceasing UV irradiation, which causes an unwanted property change of azobenzene-containing materials. Additionally, thermal and mechanical conditions would accelerate this process dramatically. In this present work, a new type of azobenzene-containing surfactant is designed for the fabrication of photoresponsive phase change biomaterials. With a "locked" cis-azobenzene conformation, the resulting biomaterials could maintain their disordered state after ceasing UV light, which exhibit great resistance to thermal and piezo conditions. Interestingly, the "locked" cis-azobenzene could be unlocked by Vis light in high efficiency, which opens a new way for the design of phase change materials only responding to light. By showing stable cis-azobenzene maintained physical state, the newly fabricated biomaterials provide new potential for the construction of advanced materials, like self-healing materials, with less use of long time UV irradiation for maintaining their disordered states.

Tailoring effects of the chain length and terminal substituent on the photochromism of solid-state spiropyrans.

Recently, by constructing a haloalkyl chain, a new class of solid-state spiropyrans showing advanced photochromic activity has been developed, but the tailoring effect of the haloalkyl chain on photochromism is unclear. Here, the photochromism of solid-state spiropyrans with different chain lengths and end substituents is investigated, which gives a clear correlation between the chain length/end substituent and the thermodynamic stability of zwitterionic merocyanine. This work provides a useful designing strategy for tailoring the photochromism of solid-state spiropyrans.