Photoregulation of Polymer Conformation

Abstract

The flow of energy from the Sun out into the universe, absorbed by day and radiated out at night, has brought about on Earth the molecular ordering from which life originated [1]. The same flow has since supplied the necessary energy for the continuation of life. The way in which living organisms utilize solar energy can be roughly divided in two classes. It is either trapped and subsequently stored in chemical bonds, to be used as source of energy, or it triggers a physiological response for information purposes. It is this second class of phenomena that provided the inspiration for the investigations reported in this article. To place this research in its proper context we will briefly discuss three systems of the type we are interested in that have been reported in the literature. These are the process of vision, the photoregulation of enzyme inhibition and the photoregulation of the viscosity of a polymer solution. Of these three the first one is purely biological, the last one completely artificial, while the second system is more or less in between.

The manuscript was prepared at the State University, Groningen, The Netherlands. We thank Dr H. J. C. Berendsen, Professor of Chemistry at this University for his many helpful suggestions.