Azo‐Polymer Janus Particles Assembled by Solvent‐Induced Microphase Separation and Their Photoresponsive Behavior

We report the successful fabrication of photoresponsive Janus particles (JPs) composed of an epoxy‐based azo polymer and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). Two representative azo polymers, of which one polymer (BP‐AZ‐CN) has cyano groups as electron‐withdrawing substituents on the azobenzene moieties and the other polymer (BP‐AZ‐CA) has carboxyl groups as the electron‐withdrawing substituents, were adopted for the investigation. The nanoscaled JPs, with a narrow size distribution and different azo polymer/PMMA ratios, were fabricated through self‐assembly in solution and as dispersions. Upon irradiation with linearly polarized light (λ=488 nm), two types of photoresponsive behavior were observed for JPs in the solid state. For JPs composed of BP‐AZ‐CN and PMMA, the light irradiation caused the azo‐polymer component to be stretched along the light polarization direction. Conversely, for JPs composed of BP‐AZ‐CA and PMMA, the azo‐polymer component became separated from PMMA component under the same irradiation conditions. These observations are valuable for a deeper understanding of the nature of self‐assembly and photoinduced mass‐transport at the nanometer scale.