Photomanipulatable colloidal clusters from the aggregation of azo molecular glass spheres.

Colloidal clusters with well-controlled shapes have attracted extensive interest in the fields of materials, chemistry, physics, and biology. This communication reports the controllable fabrication of photoresponsive colloidal clusters with a wide range of adjustable sizes and complex architectures through an approach of microsphere formation and fusion. The clusters of colloidal spheres were obtained adding ethanol dropwise into a tetrahydrofuran solution of an isosorbide-based azo compound (IAC-4).