Light Induced Deformation of Azobenzene Containing Colloidal Spheres: Calculation and Measurement of Opto-Mechanical Stresses

We report on light induced deformation of colloidal spheres consisting of azobenzene containing polymers. The colloids of the size between 60nm and 2m in diameter were drop casted on a glass surface and irradiated with linearly polarized light. It was found that colloidal particles can be deformed up to ca. 6 times of their initial diameter. The maximum degree of deformation depends on the irradiation wavelength and intensity, as well as on colloidal particles size. Based on recently proposed theory [V. Toshchevikov et al. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2017], we calculated the opto-mechanical stresses (ca. 100 MPa) needed for such giant deformations and compared them with the experimental results.