title: Gram-scale synthesis of two-dimensional polymer crystals and their structure analysis by X-ray diffraction.
abstract: The rise of graphene, a natural two-dimensional polymer (2DP) with topologically planar repeat units, has challenged synthetic chemistry, and has highlighted that accessing equivalent covalently bonded sheet-like macromolecules has, until recently, not been achieved. Here we show that non-centrosymmetric, enantiomorphic single crystals of a simple-to-make monomer can be photochemically converted into chiral 2DP crystals and cleanly reversed back to the monomer. X-ray diffraction established unequivocal structural proof for this synthetic 2DP, which has an all-carbon scaffold and can be synthesized on the gram scale. The monomer crystals are highly robust, can be easily grown to sizes greater than 1 mm and the resulting 2DP crystals exfoliated into nanometre-thin sheets. This unique combination of features suggests that these 2DPs could find use in membranes and nonlinear optics.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 5, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Max J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Kory
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry, Small Molecule Crystallography Center, Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wörle
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Crystallography, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 5, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 5, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Payam
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Payamyar
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 5, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Stan W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: van de Poll
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Crystallography, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 5, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dshemuchadse
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry, Small Molecule Crystallography Center, Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Nils
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Trapp
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 5, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: A Dieter
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Schlüter