CAREER: Introducing Hierarchical Architectures into Advanced Functional Organic Materials Controlling the Secondary and Tertiary Structure of Carbon Nanocoils

在这个由化学系高分子、超分子和纳米化学计划资助的项目中，加州大学伯克利分校的Felix Fischer教授正在开发新的合成聚合物，可以模仿自然产生的生物聚合物的不同结构特征。聚合物是一种长链有机分子，存在于日常生活的许多方面，虽然合成聚合物已经适应了我们工业化文化的几乎所有方面，但与它们的生物类似物相比，它们的性能和结构多样性仍然不足。生物聚合物在结构和功能上的多样性，从分子机械、数据和能量存储，到跨越几个数量级的结构支撑，例如，从糖分子的大小(一毫米的微小分数)到红杉树的高度(超过100米)。正在进行的教育活动包括对本科生和研究生的教育和培训，在加州大学伯克利分校的化学学院设立“女生节”，并作为内容贡献者和导师参与“触摸分子”计划。在这个项目中，Fischer教授正在开发新的合成工具，将更高级别的结构和复杂的功能编码成人造聚合物，目标是在分子水平上调节它们的物理性质(如尺寸、形状、电子结构)和功能(化学反应或对外部刺激的反应)，并在精确定义的高阶结构中控制它们的程序化组装和合作相互作用。具体地说，Fischer教授正在使用一种相对较新的聚合方法：开环炔化反应(ROAMP)来合成聚芳基乙炔(PAE)和“碳纳米线圈”。实验计划包括探索合成环张力单体以获得邻位、间位和对位取代的PAE，开发能够很好地实现单体活性聚合的烷基钼催化剂，研究生成的PAE的构象折叠和二级结构，并指导它们的进一步自组装。

In this project funded by the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry Program of the Division of Chemistry, Professor Felix Fischer of the University of California at Berkley is developing new synthetic polymers that can mimic the diverse structural features of naturally occurring biological polymers. Polymers are long chain organic molecules and are found in many facets of everyday life, and while synthetic polymers have been adapted to almost every aspect of our industrialized culture, their performance and structural diversity still falls short when compared to their biological analogues. The diversity both in architecture and function emerging from biological polymers ranges from molecular machinery, data and energy storage, to structural support that spans over several orders of magnitude, e.g. from the size of a sugar molecule (tiny fractions of a millimeter) to the height of a Sequoia tree (greater than 100 meters). The educational activities being pursued include the education and training of undergraduate and graduate students, establishing a "Girls Day" at the College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, and participating in the "Touch a Molecule" program as a content contributor and a mentor.In this project, Professor Fischer is developing new synthetic tools to encode higher order structure and complex function into artificial polymers with the goal of tuning both their physical properties (e.g. size, shape, electronic structure) and function (chemical reactivity or response to external stimuli) at the molecular scale and controlling both their programmed assembly and their cooperative interaction in precisely defined higher order architectures. Specifically, Professor Fischer is synthesizing poly(arylene ethynylenes) (PAEs) and "carbon nanocoils" using a relatively new polymerization methodology: ring-opening alkyne metathesis (ROAMP). The experimental plans includes exploring methodology to synthesize ring-strained monomers to access ortho-, meta-, and para-substituted PAEs, to develop molybdenum alkylidyne catalysts that well effect a living polymerization of the monomers, to study the conformational folding and secondary structures of the resultant PAEs, and to direct their further self-assembly.