Location of the Azobenzene moieties within the cross-linked liquid-crystalline polymers can dictate the direction of photoinduced bending

We present a simple way to control the photoinduced bending direction of azobenzene-containing cross-linked liquidcrystalline polymers. By changing the location of the photoactive azobenzene moieties from cross-links to side-chains, the bending direction of the sample is reversed under identical irradiation conditions. In addition to providing a versatile route toward directionality control of the photoinduced macroscopic motions, this observation highlights the complicated nature of the photomechanical response of azobenzene-containing cross-linked liquidcrystalline polymers, showing that the photomobile behavior can be determined by seemingly small details on the materials design.