Synthesis of Thermostable Azo‐type Photoswitches towards Photoregulating Nucleic Acid Structures

In order to design efficient and thermostable azo-type regulators, a series of azo-type compounds were synthesized and characterized. While introducing an inductive electron-withdrawing group to an azobenzene para or meta-position, the obtained compound can be an excellent photoswitch. 3,3′-Azo-di-benzyl alcohol was designed and synthesized as one of thermostable and efficient photoswitches, which can efficiently reversibly photoregulate the nucleic acid structure with its cis-isomer being sufficiently stable at physiological temperature.