The use of UV/visible light irradiation as a means to initiate organic syntheses is increasingly attractive due to the high spatial and temporal control conferred by photochemical processes. The aim of this work is thus to demonstrate that alkoxyamines bearing a chromophore on the alkyl moiety can provide a photo-protecting group for the sensitive nitroxide functionality, that is known to degrade through redox processes. The dissociation of various photosensitive alkoxyamines was studied from

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... 3 K to 298 K under UV/visible irradiation, depending on the nature of the chromophore. In each case a rapid (typically in less than one hour) and near-quantitative dissociation was observed. As an illustration of the interest of this approach, a pyrene-based alkoxyamine was employed for the spatially controlled coupling of polymer chains onto Si wafers to produce micro-patterned surfaces.