报告题目：Ladderane mechanochemistry towards force-responsive polymer materials

报告人🖇：陈知行 博士 Department of Chemistry， Stanford University

报告时间: 11月14日（周二）上午10点

报告地点🙇🏽‍♀️：英士楼205会议室

In an effort to develop synthetic materials that transduce mechanical force into multifold drastic changes in their intrinsic properties, we demonstrate mechanochemically responsive insulating poly(ladderene) that unzips to form semiconductive polyacetylene via an extensive rearrangement of the macromolecular structure in response to force. The poly(ladderene) was synthesized by direct metathesis polymerization of ladderene, a natural product-inspired scaffold. The mechanochemically formed polyacetylene exhibited remarkably long conjugation length and uniform trans-configuration and self-assembled into semiconducting nanowires. Mechanistic insight of ladderane unzipping process would also be discussed. The mechanochemistry of ladderene opens new avenue in force-responsive materials for connecting mechanical inputs with distinct optical/electronic properties and rich functions of conjugated polymers.

Dr. Zhixing Chen （陈知行） received BS in chemistry (chemical biology) from Tsinghua University (2008) and PhD in chemistry from Columbia University (2014). Currently he is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. Zhixing is a chemist with experience spanning natural product total synthesis, fluorescence and non-linear optical probes, live cell imaging and bioconjugation, polymer chemistry and mechanochemistry. Zhixing is currently seeking for opportunities to establish an interdisciplinary lab developing small and macro-molecular tools to understand mechaochemistry, to engineer responsive biomaterials and to promote advanced optical imaging technologies for better visualizing and modulating biosystems.