Photoresponsive metal-organic framework materials for advance applications

The interaction between light and materials produces a range of phenomena within molecular systems, leading to advanced applications in the field of materials science. In this regard, metal-organic framework (MOF) materials have become superior candidates to others because of their easy tailor-made synthetic methods via incorporation of photoactive moieties into their structural assembly. Photoresponsive MOFs exhibit a massive variety of exciting properties, including photochromism, photomagnetism, photoluminescence, photon up or down conversion, photoconductivity, nonlinear optical properties, photosalient effects and photoinduced switching of conformations. These photoresponsive properties of MOFs regulate different potential applications, such as on-demand gas sorption and separation, optical sensing, fabrication of photoactuators and photosensing electronic devices, dye degradation, catalysis, cargo delivery, ink-free erasable printing, bio-imaging and drug delivery in biological systems. Therefore, judicious crystal engineering along with an understanding of their structure-property relationship will lead to the fabrication of desired photosensitive MOFs. Herein, we attempted to incorporate categorical descriptions based on advanced applications of photoresponsive MOFs considering a wide range of recent publications. This highlight article aims to summarize different types of MOF materials and their strategies that cause them to exhibit photoresponsive behaviour.