New Light-Driven Twist on Water-Soluble Polymers Breaks Efficiency Records

In a new Angewandte Chemie paper, researchers report a major advance in controlling water-soluble azopolymers with low-energy visible light by using a strategy called sensitized disequilibration (DESC). Traditionally these molecular switches require harmful UV light, but by combining DESC with polymers made via RAFT, the team achieved switching efficiencies up to about 85 % under yellow light, opening doors for light-driven soft materials and biomedical applications.

A special congratulations to Henning Meteling for his key role in this work — helping to expand the DESC concept from small molecules into larger, functional polymer systems.

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