Fig. 6: Structure of the fibers.
From: Living supramolecular polymerization of fluorinated cyclohexanes
a Electron diffraction pattern of the organic fibers under low-dose conditions (electron dose: 0.45 e−/Å2). The diameter of the illuminated area was c.a. 5 μm. The diffraction ring is located at 2.1 nm−1, corresponding to a lattice spacing of 4.8 Å. b Bright-field TEM image showing several bundles of the organic fibers. The circle indicates the position of the selected-area aperture with a diameter of 0.7 μm. c Selected-area electron diffraction pattern acquired from the circular region in (b) with an electron dose of 0.12 e−/Å2. d Atomistic detail of the monomer arrangement in the helix structure—blue and cyan arrows connecting the benzene (tail) to the pentafluorocyclohexyl groups (head). Color code: green: F; red: O; blue: N; gray: C. e Details of the side (left) and the top (right) views of the arrangement of four M3 in the helix (monomers within the black rectangle in d). H-bonds between the monomers are shown as dashed black lines. f Top: equilibrated snapshot of a M3 pre-assembled fiber after 1 μs of MD simulation. The system corresponds to a full helical turn with a pitch of ~12 nm (opaque), forming an infinite helicoidal fiber through the periodic boundaries (periodic images shown in transparency). Bottom: space-filling model of M3 polymer demonstrating relative arrangement of two monomer stacks (gray and blue).
