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Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Monitoring the Effects of Illumination on the Structure of Conjugated Polymer Gels Using Neutron Scattering
Published on: December 21, 2017
Controlling bending and twisting of conjugated polymers via solitons
1Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Abstract:
A strong generic coupling between self-localized solitons and conformations of a pi-conjugated polymer chain is demonstrated through ab initio calculations and the underlying mechanisms revealed by using an extended Hubbard model. We show that significant chain bending and twisting of trans- and cis-polyacetylene result from torque imbalances among atom-centered orbitals and the steric instability at single-bond cis-centers, respectively. The soliton-induced conformational effects create sufficient strains to provide an intrinsic high-strain-rate actuation mechanism in optical excitation processes.
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