Untapped potential for debonding on demand: the wonderful world of azo-compounds

We highlight and explore recent advances in the design of debonding on demand soft matter materials based on the azo-motif. While azo-motifs are most frequently exploited for their light induced cis/ trans isomerization behavior, we herein focus on their arguably less-known function as a cleavable linker. We demonstrate that the use of azo-units as cleavable linkers provides access to a rich chemistry of materials, rapidly establishing their place in the field of adaptable soft matter materials design. Critically, we identify the outstanding challenges that will equip the degradable nature of the azo-unit with to-date inaccessible property profiles including light gated on/off switches, allowing soft matter materials to be cleaved depending on specific colors of light.