Scalable Synthesis of Two-dimensional Polymer Crystals and Exfoliation into Nanometer-thin Sheets

Abstract

Two-dimensional materials have moved into the spotlight of researchers. The isolation of single graphene sheets has shown that restricted dimensionality can lead to interesting properties. Bottom-up synthesis of organic, covalently-bonded structures is, however, still challenging. In this publication we give a synopsis of a recently published monomer that is easily accessible and reversibly provides chiral two-dimensional polymer single crystals, which can be exfoliated into nanometer-thin sheets and show promise for applications in, for example, nonlinear optics and ultrathin membranes.