New types of multifunctional liquid crystalline photochromic copolymers for optical data recording and storage

A new family of multifunctional chiral-photochromic liquid crystalline (LC) copolymers containing mesogenic, chiral and photoactive groups were synthe sized. The new principles of photo-regulation of the helical supramolecular structure and optical properties of the binary and ternary chiral-photochr omic LC polymers based on the change of helical twisting power of the chira l-photochromic monomer units, the dual photochromism and photochemical spec tral gap burning were developed. It was shown, that the introduction of sma ll amount of low-molar-mass chiral-photochromic dopants in chiral LC copoly mers having different helix signs followed by light irradiation permits one to twist or untwist the helical supramolecular structure. The synthesized polymers are shown to be promising candidates for colour data recording and storage.