Isothermal Chirality Switching in Liquid-Crystalline Azobenzene Compounds with Non-Polarized Light.

Spontaneous mirror-symmetry breaking is a fundamental process for development of chirality in natural and in artificial self-assembled systems. A series of triple chain azobenzene based rod-like compounds is investigated that show mirror-symmetry breaking in an isotropic liquid occurring adjacent to a lamellar LC phase. The transition between the lamellar phase and the symmetry-broken liquid is affected by trans-cis photoisomerization, which allows a fast and reversible photoinduced switching between chiral and achiral states with non-polarized light.