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Two-dimensional materials

Polymers stripped down

Nature Chemistry volume 4, pages 244–245 (2012)Cite this article

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Two-dimensional polymers can serve to organize chemical functionality periodically over large areas, but their rational synthesis has remained limited. Now, a free-standing, single-layer polymer sheet has been prepared and isolated through a two-step procedure — a photochemical reaction within a layered organic crystal followed by exfoliation.

Chemical synthesis offers a vast array of methods for preparing complex molecular compounds and one-dimensional polymer chains of high molecular mass. Millions of tonnes of these polymers are manufactured annually, and they have come to influence every aspect of modern life.

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Figure 1: A topochemical 2D polymerization within a layered organic crystal and subsequent exfoliation to a single-layer 2D polymer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fernando J. Uribe-Romo and William R. Dichtel are in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Baker Laboratory, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA,

    Fernando J. Uribe-Romo & William R. Dichtel

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  1. Fernando J. Uribe-Romo
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  2. William R. Dichtel
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Correspondence to William R. Dichtel.

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Uribe-Romo, F., Dichtel, W. Polymers stripped down. Nature Chem 4, 244–245 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1317

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