Photodegradable Coordination Polymer Particles for Light-Controlled Cargo Release

[Image: see text] Stimuli-responsive coordination polymer particles (CPPs) show great promise for encapsulating and releasing cargos due to their unique and highly tailorable structures and properties. In particular, photoresponsive CPPs have received enormous interest, as noninvasive light can be spatially and temporally controlled, resulting in great safety and efficiency. In this work, we report the design and synthesis of novel photodegradable CPPs by infinite coordination polymerization of Zn(2+) and a photocleavable organic linker containing o-nitrobenzyl derivatives. We further demonstrate that these novel photodegradable CPPs are able to efficiently encapsulate cargos and are applicable for on-command drug release upon low-power UV light irradiation (5.78 mW/cm(2)). Because light is a highly desirable remote-trigger and can be used externally, we expect that these photodegradable CPPs can provide a unique platform for controlled cargo release.