Controlled stacking and unstacking of peripheral chlorophyll units drives the springlike contraction and expansion of a semi-artificial helical polymer

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We propose a strategy to endow a helical polymer chain with dynamic spring-like motion through the one-dimensional self-assembly of peripheral amphiphilic molecules. In our system, we employed a semi-artificial helical polysaccharide presenting peripheral amphiphilic chlorophyll units as a power device that undergoes contractive motion in aqueous media, driven by strong II-II interactions of its chlorophyll units or by cooperative molecular recognition of bipyridyl-type ligands through pairs of chlorophyll units, thereby converting molecular information into the regulated motion of a spring.