Synthesis of Metallopolymers and Direct Visualization of the Single Polymer Chain
Zhikai Li1,2, Yiming Li2, Yiming Zhao1, Heng Wang2,3, Yuan Zhang4,5, Bo Song2, Xiaohong Li1, Shuai Lu2, 6, Xin-Qi Hao6, Saw-Wai Hla4*, Yingfeng Tu1*（屠迎锋）, and Xiaopeng Li2*
1Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, China
2Department of Chemistry, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
3 College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China
4Nanoscience and Technology Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, United States
5Department of Physics, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23529, United States
6College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450001, China
Z.L., Y.L., and Y.Z. contributed equally to this work
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 6196--6205
During the past few decades, the study of the single polymer chain has attracted considerable attention with the goal of exploring the structure–property relationship of polymers. It still, however, remains challenging due to the variability and low atomic resolution of the amorphous single polymer chain. Here, we demonstrated a new strategy to visualize the single metallopolymer chain with a hexameric or trimeric supramolecule as a repeat unit, in which Ru(II) with strong coordination and Fe(II) with weak coordination were combined together in a stepwise manner. With the help of ultrahigh-vacuum, low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (UHV-LT-STM) and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS), we were able to directly visualize both Ru(II) and Fe(II), which act as staining reagents on the repeat units, thus providing detailed structural information for the single polymer chain. As such, the direct visualization of the single random polymer chain is realized to enhance the characterization of polymers at the single-molecule level.
链接：https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.0c00110
