Synthesis and Characterization of Azobenzene-Confined Porphyrins

Abstract
A versatile synthetic method has been developed to incorporate photochromic azobenzene moieties into tetraphenylporphyrin frameworks in an orthogonal fashion, positioning the phenylazo substituents above and below the plane of the macrocycle. Surprisingly, photoisomerization is completely suppressed in the resulting azobenzene-confined porphyrins.