Photo-Responsive Control of Adsorption and Structure Formation at the Air–Water Interface with Arylazopyrazoles

Michael Hardt, Franziska Busse, Simon Raschke, Christian Honnigfort, Javier Carrascosa-Tejedor, Paul Wenk, Philipp Gutfreund, Richard A. Campbell, Andreas Heuer, Björn Braunschweig

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Abstract

Smart interfaces that are responsive to external triggers such as light are of great interest for the development of responsive or adaptive materials and interfaces. Using alkyl-arylazopyrazole butyl sulfonate surfactants (alkyl-AAP) that can undergo E/Z photoisomerization when irradiated with green (E) and UV (Z) light, we demonstrate through a combination of experiments and computer simulations that there can be surprisingly large changes in surface tension as well as in the molecular structure and order at air-water interfaces. Surface tensiometry, vibrational sum-frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy and neutron reflectometry (NR) are applied to the study of custom-synthesized AAP surfactants with octyl- and H-terminal groups at air-water interfaces as a function of their bulk concentration and E/Z configuration. Upon photoswitching, a drastic influence of the alkyl chain on both the surface activity and the responsiveness of interfacial surfactants is revealed from changes in the surface tension, γ, where the largest changes in γ are observed for octyl-AAP (∆γ~23 mN/m) in contrast to H-AAP with ∆γ
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5861-5871
JournalLangmuir
Volume39
Issue number16
Early online date14 Apr 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Apr 2023

Keywords

  • Sum-Frequency Generation
  • Photoresponsive Materials
  • Neutron Reflectometry
  • Ultra Coarse-Grained Simulations
  • Fluid Interfaces
  • Photoisomerization

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