Surface grafting of cyclic olefins with low strain energies, including cyclopentene (CP), 1,4-cyclohexadiene (CHD), cycloheptene (CHP), cis-cyclooctene (CO), cis,cis-1,5-cyclooctadiene (COD), 1,3,5,7-cyclooctatetraene (COT), cyclododecene (CD), and trans,trans,cis-1,5,9-cyclododecatriene (CDT), were explored using ring-opening metathesis polymerization in the vapor phase. These monomers do not polymerize when SiROMP is carried out in solution due to pronounced chain transfer on surfaces where chains are in close proximities. In the vapor phase, however, chain transfer is suppressed at the solid-vapor interfaces, which permits the polymerization of most of these monomers. A minimal required strain energy of 2.2 kcal/mol was determined in this study, which is significantly lower than the estimated 13.3 kcal/mol for SiROMP carried out in solution, indicating that the enhancement in monomer polymerizability is significant using the vapor phase approach. A series of polyalkenamers with controlled fraction of unsaturation from 8% to 50% along the polymer backbone were grafted to solid substrates. It was observed that the logarithm of largest grafted layer thickness obtained before the removal of chain transfer products – which correlates with the extent of polymerization – scales with monomer strain energy. This confirms that the release of ring strain is the thermodynamic driving force for SiROMP. It was also found that although chain transfer is suppressed in the vapor phase, it is important in monomer/polymer systems where the fraction of unsaturated bonds is high. In these cases, grafted polymer thickness is dominated by chain transfer, rather than by monomer strain energy. A quantitative relationship is established for estimating graft thickness of a particular monomer using its strain energy and fraction of unsaturated bonds in the monomer.

We describe the detachment of covalently grafted polybutadiene and polynorbornenechains -which were prepared by surface-initiated ring-opening metathesis polymerization (SiROMP) -from Si/ SiO 2 substrates upon brief exposure to common solvents in air. Degradation and disappearance of grafted polybutadiene films after successive rinses with dichloromethane was monitored by ellipsometry. Changes in surface topography were analyzed by atomic force microscopy. The rapid auto-oxidation of allylic carbon-hydrogen bonds renders these thin films extremely susceptible to degradation under ambient conditions. Polymers in the tethered state suffer more acute degradation (on the time scale of seconds) compared to those dissolved in solution (not detectable after days). To prevent degradation, unsaturated polymersprepared by SiROMP and the subsequent conversion (of unsaturated groups) need to be carriedout under inert atmosphere. For example, smooth polybutadiene thin films of ~ 100 Å thick were covalently attached to silicon substrates via SiROMP of cyclooctadiene in the vapor phase. Solvent rinsing to remove unreacted monomers and free oligomers/polymers was carried out prior to the conversion of double bonds to epoxide groups. When these steps were carried out under nitrogen, negligible film loss was observed and surface topography of the thin film was preserved. Once the unsaturation was removed from polybutadiene, the epoxidized and hydroxylated polybutadiene films were stable toward solvent exposure in air.