Mimicking photoisomerisation of azo-materials by a force field switch derived from nonadiabatic ab initio simulations: Application to photoswitchable helical foldamers in solution

A force field to induce isomerisation of photoswitchable azobenzene groups embedded in molecular materials has been developed in the framework of force field molecular dynamics simulations. A molecular mechanics switching potential has been tuned so as to reproduce both the correct photoisomerisation timescale and mechanism that has been generated by reference nonadiabatic ab initio molecular dynamics. As a first application, we present a force field molecular dynamics study of a prototype photoswitchable foldamer in acetonitrile as solvent. Our analyses reveal that the photoisomerisation of the azobenzene unit embedded in the foldamer occurs via the so-called NN-twist mechanism, and that there exist several distinct unfolding channels for the helix that could be exploited in novel applications of photoresponsive materials. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.