Synthesis of helical ladder polymers

Researchers at Kanazawa University synthesized helical ladder polymers with a well-defined cyclic repeating unit and one-handed helical geometry, as they reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

'Random walk' of heat carriers in amorphous polymers

The intrinsic structure of amorphous polymers is highly disordered with long, entangled molecular chains. They are usually considered as thermal insulators due to their ultra-low thermal conductivity. One effective way to ...

Resolving tension on the surface of polymer mixes

Better than playing with Legos, throwing polymer chains of different lengths into a mix can yield surprising results. In a new study published in EPJ E, physicists focus on how a mixture of chemically identical chains into ...

Light-controlled gearbox for nanomachines

Rewarded with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016, nanomachines provide mechanical work on the smallest of scales. Yet at such small dimensions, molecular motors can complete this work in only one direction. Researchers from ...

A contractile gel that stores light energy

Living systems have the ability to produce collective molecular motions that have an effect at the macroscale, such as a muscle that contracts via the concerted action of protein motors. In order to reproduce this phenomenon, ...

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