A chiral nematic liquid crystal–photopolymerizable monomer–chiral azobenzene compound composite was prepared and then polymerized under UV irradiation. The reflection wavelength of the composite can be extended to cover the 1000–2400 nm range and also be adjusted to the visible light region by controlling the concentration of chiral compounds.

A series of photoresponsive halogen-bonded liquid crystals (LCs) were successfully constructed using molecular halogen and azopyridine compounds, which show interesting properties of photoinduced phase transition upon UV irradiation.

Highly conductive ink with low sintering temperature is important for printed electronics on paper substrate. Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) of different average radii ranging from 48 to 176 nm were synthesized by adjusting the Ag+ concentration in the reaction process. The electric resistivity of the Ag NP-based ink film in relation to Ag NP size, sintering temperature, amount of PVP capping agent on Ag NP surface, and morphology evolution of the film during heating process was investigated. It was found that the resistivity of the films reduced very rapidly with increasing particle size due above all to reduced amount of protective agent capping on the Ag NPs. A semi-empirical relationship between the resistivity and the particle size was proposed. With the help of this mathematical expression, one gains both systematic and detailed insight to the resistivity evaluation with regard to the Ag particle size. The optimal electric resistivity of 4.6 μΩ cm was achieved at 140 °C for 10 min which was very close to the resistivity value of bulk Ag (1.58 μΩ cm). Mechanical flexibility of the printed electronics with the Ag NP-based ink on paper substrates was investigated. The prints on the art coated paper exhibited better flexibility compared to that on the photopaper. This might be attributed to the surface coating composition, surface morphology of the paper, and their corresponding ink absorption property.

Flexible pressure sensors have attracted tremendous attention from researchers for their widely applications in tactile artificial intelligence, electric skin, disease diagnosis, and healthcare monitoring. Obtaining flexible pressure sensors with high sensitivity in a low cost and convenient way remains a huge challenge. In this paper, the composite dielectric layer based on the mixture of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with different aspect ratios and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was employed in flexible capacitive pressure sensor to increase its sensitivity. In addition, the screen printing instead of traditional etching based methods was used to prepare the electrodes array of the sensor. The results showed that the aspect ratio and weight fraction of the CNTs play an important role in improving the sensitivity of the printed capacitive pressure sensor. The prepared capacitive sensor with the CNTs/PDMS composite dielectric layer demonstrated a maximum sensitivity of 2.9 kPa⁻¹ in the pressure range of 0–450 Pa, by using the CNTs with an aspect ratio of 1250–3750 and the weight fraction of 3.75%. The mechanism study revealed that the increase of the sensitivity of the pressure sensor should be attributed to the relative permittivity increase of the composite dielectric layer under pressure. Meanwhile, the printed 3 × 3 and 10 × 10 sensor arrays showed excellent spatial resolution and uniformity when they were applied to measure the pressure distribution. For further applications, the flexible pressure sensor was integrated on an adhesive bandage to detect the finger bending, as well as used to create Morse code by knocking the sensor to change their capacitance curves. The printed and flexible pressure sensor in this study might be a good candidate for the development of tactile artificial intelligence, intelligent medical diagnosis systems and wearable electronics.

Photothermal effect of azopyridine compounds and their azobenzene analogs were studied systematically. Under the same condition, the azopyridine compounds showed higher photothermal conversion efficiency than their analogs, and both of their photoresponsiveness were greatly accelerated when the intensity of irradiated UV light was higher than 400 mW cm⁻². Two possible applications were proposed for the photothermal effect of azopyridine compounds. One was intelligent stickup technology, and the tensile strength between two glass sides was photocontrolled to be as high as 0.661 MPa. The other was photo-driven movement with bilayer films composed of one A12AzPy/PVA composite film, and photoinduced bending was successfully observed due to volume change caused by the photothermal effect.

The reversible photoisomerization of azobenzenes has been extensively studied to construct systems with optical responsiveness; however, this process limits the luminescence of these compounds. Recently, there have been many efforts to design and synthesize fluorescent azobenzene compounds, such as inhibition of electron transfer, inducing aggregation, and metal-enhancement, which make the materials ideal for application in fluorescence probes, light-emitting devices, molecular detection, etc. Herein, we review the recently reported progress in the development of various fluorescent azobenzenes and summarize the possible mechanism of their fluorescence emission. The potential applications of these materials are also discussed. Finally, in order to guide research in this field, the existing problems and future development prospects are discussed.