Power of light – Functional complexes based on azobenzene molecules

A significant amount of academic and industrial research efforts is devoted to design, synthesis and to investigate the important determinants of stabilizing/destabilizing photosensitive based complexes capable of undergoing repeated light-triggered conformation changes. In this review, we provide the readers with a deep and comprehensive knowledge concerning complexes formed with azobenzene molecules as the light-sensitive ligands. Azobenzene, reported for the first time 83 years ago, has been used as a photo-chromic unit in numerus complex structures and has played a key role in thousands of scientific publications. However, this review focuses on a representative group of palladium, zinc, iron, nickel, and copper complexes which have had noteworthy influence on breakthrough ideas and society. Particularly, in this review we show that the azobenzene-metal complexes demonstrated to be effective for DNA cleavage, they have formed the most significant part of molecular machines and they have been applied in catalysis, molecular biology, and medicine, as well as they have been used as chemosensors.