Terraced and 3D Pyramid‐Shaped Polymer Single Crystal via Low Temperature‐Assisted Microfluidic Technology

Abstract

3D pyramidal polymer single crystals provide spatial gradient variations within the crystal molecules, and these variations facilitate the study of the relationship between structure and properties within the molecules of various complexes with anisotropic structures. As described herein, a low-temperature-assisted microfluidic pore channeling approach is proposed to prepare structurally ordered polymer single crystals. A mixture of dichloromethane and dimethyl sulfoxide is used as a prepolymer, and a liquid microfluidic technique is employed to grow the end-functionalized polymers into 3D polymer single crystals. Through the ordered growth of single crystals, a personalized pyramidal pattern with a homogeneous structure is formed. To evaluate the mesh node density, low-temperature growth time and substrate type are also investigated. Rectangular, pyramidal, and dendritic patterns are synthesized via low-temperature single crystal growth. This work shows that low temperature-assisted microfluidics provides a novel means to tune the 3D structure of polymer single crystals.

Molecular Dynamics Simulation for Thiolated Poly(ethylene glycol) at Low‐Temperature Based on the Density Functional Tight‐Binding Method

“…The crystalline morphology of polymers is one of the factors that determine their mechanical and thermodynamic properties. [ 1–4 ] Therefore, studying the forces within the molecules of crystalline polymers to explore the intrinsic properties of the materials opens up possibilities for the application of polymeric materials in energy, [ 5 ] sensor, [ 6,7 ] semiconductor, [ 8,9 ] aerospace, [ 10 ] metallurgical manufacturing, [ 11 ] etc. [ 12–14 ] The structural features inside crystalline polymers are essential for understanding the design of materials at the molecular and atomic scales on the micro and nanoscale.…”

“…The crystalline morphology of polymers is one of the factors that determine their mechanical and thermodynamic properties. [1][2][3][4] Therefore, studying the forces within the molecules of crystalline polymers to explore the intrinsic properties of the materials opens up possibilities for the application of polymeric tion, the molecular mechanics method was proposed to simulate the behavior of molecules by neglecting the electron motion in calculations. [24][25][26] Molecular dynamics simulations are an important tool to study the atomic distribution and electronic structure of polymeric materials in 2D and 3D.…”