Periodic organic, nanodot patterns for optical memory

The fabrication of organic nanodots from photoswitchable fulgide molecules is shown. The dots are formed by dewetting of thin precursor films of the organic molecules on topographically structured substrates. In this way, we are able to control size, density, and arrangement of nanodots on millimeter-squared sized areas. We show that nanodots can be switched between isomeric molecular conformation reversibly.