Molecular photoswitches in liquid crystals

One effective strategy to transmit light energy into a relevant molecular operation is the use of molecular photoswitches. Molecular rearrangements of such switches occurring upon absorbing light photons can be harnessed to modulate various macroscopic properties of the materials, which can become relevant for practical applications. Transduction and amplification of the molecular operation of photoswitches across multiple length scales are achieved by integrating molecular photoswitches into self-organized liquid crystal materials. In this chapter, we discuss which strategies have been successfully applied to couple molecular photoswitches with liquid crystals effectively, with a special focus on the functional properties of the resulting materials.