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  • Single crystal of a one-dim...
    Xu, Hai-Sen; Luo, Yi; Li, Xing; See, Pei Zhen; Chen, Zhongxin; Ma, Tianqiong; Liang, Lin; Leng, Kai; Abdelwahab, Ibrahim; Wang, Lin; Li, Runlai; Shi, Xiangyan; Zhou, Yi; Lu, Xiu Fang; Zhao, Xiaoxu; Liu, Cuibo; Sun, Junliang; Loh, Kian Ping

    Nature communications, 03/2020, Volume: 11, Issue: 1
    Journal Article

    Although polymers have been studied for well over a century, there are few examples of covalently linked polymer crystals synthesised directly from solution. One-dimensional (1D) covalent polymers that are packed into a framework structure can be viewed as a 1D covalent organic framework (COF), but making a single crystal of this has been elusive. Herein, by combining labile metal coordination and dynamic covalent chemistry, we discover a strategy to synthesise single-crystal metallo-COFs under solvothermal conditions. The single-crystal structure is rigorously solved using single-crystal electron diffraction technique. The non-centrosymmetric metallo-COF allows second harmonic generation. Due to the presence of syntactic pendant amine groups along the polymer chains, the metallopolymer crystal can be further cross-linked into a crystalline woven network.