The photoisomerization of azobenzene (AZO) makes it a potential type of photoswitch for the field of chemical engineering. However, the lack of stability and photobleaching characteristics of reversible photoisomerization have restricted further application of AZO as a photoswitch. Therefore, we have designed two polymers containing the AZO domain as macromolecular photoswitches and investigated their switching performance. The hydrophilic monomers hydroxyethyl methylacrylate (HEMA) and N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone (NVP) were chosen to copolymerize with the AZO monomer to form HEMA-AZO copolymer and HEMA-NVP-AZO terpolymer. The domain content was calculated by integration of the peaks in the ¹H NMR spectrum. Real-time UV spectra of polymer solutions upon UV light irradiation confirmed quick and successful trans-to-cis transition for the AZO domain. In reverse, the operable and controllable recovery processes upon white light were also verified by real-time UV spectra. Furthermore, repeated irradiation by UV light and white light for 20 times was used to check their fatigue resistance and recyclability. Importantly, recovery behaviors for the two polymers could be adjusted by solvent property, environment temperature, and light intensity. Higher environment temperature or higher light intensity resulted in shortened recovery time. The influence of solvent was only slightly different for the two polymers. Nanoassemblies, which were formed by HEMA-NVP-AZO terpolymer and poly(β-cyclodextrin)/poly(α-cyclodextrin), exhibited similar controllable switching performance to the pure polymer. In brief, the effectiveness and efficiency of the polymers as photoswitches have been confirmed by results in this work.

偶氮苯（AZO）的光异构化使其成为化学工程领域潜在的光开关类型。然而，可逆光异构化的稳定性和光漂白特性的缺乏限制了AZO作为光开关的进一步应用。因此，我们设计了两种含有AZO结构域的聚合物作为高分子光电开关，并研究了它们的开关性能。亲水性单体羟甲基丙烯酸甲酯（HEMA）和ñ选择-乙烯基-2-吡咯烷酮（NVP）与AZO单体共聚形成HEMA-AZO共聚物和HEMA-NVP-AZO三元共聚物。域含量是通过^1中峰的积分来计算的1 H NMR谱。聚合物溶液在紫外光照射下的实时紫外光谱证实了AZO域的快速，成功的反式到顺式转变。相反，白光下的可操作和可控制的恢复过程也通过实时UV光谱进行了验证。此外，用紫外线和白光重复​​照射20次以检查它们的抗疲劳性和可回收性。重要的是，可以通过溶剂性质，环境温度和光强度来调节两种聚合物的回收行为。较高的环境温度或较高的光强度导致缩短的恢复时间。溶剂对两种聚合物的影响仅略有不同。由HEMA-NVP-AZO三元共聚物和聚（β-环糊精）/聚（α-环糊精）形成的纳米组件，具有与纯聚合物相似的可控开关性能。简而言之，这项工作的结果证实了聚合物作为光开关的有效性和效率。