Control of Main‐Chain Stiffness of a Helical Poly(phenylacetylene) by Switching On and Off the Intramolecular Hydrogen Bonding through Macromolecular Helicity Inversion

Abstract

A hard twist: A helical poly(phenylacetylene) with L- or D-alanine pendants with a long alkyl chain showed an unprecedented change in the main-chain stiffness accompanied by inversion of the helical sense of the polymer, resulting from the “on and off” fashion of the intramolecular hydrogen-bonding networks in polar and nonpolar solvents.