“…There are several classifications of star-shaped azos: they may differ in (i) the number of arms (three [9,10,14,15,16,17,18,19,20], four [7,21,22], six [23,24,25], nine [26]), (ii) in their centres (nitrogen [9,19], phosphorus [27], silicon [28] or carbon atoms [21,22], benzene [14,16,20,29,30,31,32], polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [25,33], heterocyclic hydrocarbons [34,35,36,37], some chiral groups [6] or bio-active residues [38]), (iii) in the way azobenzenes are attached to the centre (covalently or noncovalently [39]), (iv) in their conformational rigidity (flexible or rigid), and (v) in their overall geometry (quasi-planar or 3D). Both the conformational rigidity and the shape of the star are closely related to the chemical nature of the star core.…”