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Updated: Nov 6, 2025

Author Spotlight: Exploring Self-Assembled MOF-Polymer Composites
Published on: June 14, 2024
Impact of the Air Atmosphere on Photoinduced Chain Polymerization in Self-Assembled Monolayers of Diacetylene on
Daisuke Takajo1, Koichi Sudoh2
1Research Center for Thermal and Entropic Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan.
Abstract:
We have studied the effect of the reaction environment on the photoinduced chain polymerization in self-assembled monolayers of a diacetylene compound 10,12-pentacosadiyn-1-ol on graphite, using scanning tunneling microscopy. Comparing the polymerization behaviors in air and in vacuum, we show that the polymer generation efficiency is considerably enhanced under vacuum because of suppressed collisional quenching of the photoexcited radicals by oxygen molecules. We also find that the polymer chain length tends to increase in vacuum as a result of the inhibition of deactivation of reactive species for the polymer chain growth due to oxidation.
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