Huan Zhang

The use of neural network parametrizations to represent the ground state in variational Monte Carlo (VMC) calculations has generated intense interest in recent years. However, as we demonstrate in the context of the periodic Heisenberg spin chain, this approach can produce unreliable wave function approximations. One of the most obvious signs of failure is the occurrence of random, persistent spikes in the energy estimate during training. These energy spikes are caused by regions of configuration space that are over-represented by the wave function density, which are called ``spurious modes'' in the machine learning literature. After exploring these spurious modes in detail, we demonstrate that a collective-variable-based penalization yields a substantially more robust training procedure, preventing the formation of spurious modes and improving the accuracy of energy estimates. Because the penalization scheme is cheap to implement and is not specific to the particular model studied here, it can be extended to other applications of VMC where a reasonable choice of collective variable is available.

A methanone tethered cinnamate dimer manifests both multimodal stress-responsiveness and mechanical adaptability by light.

Conjugated Möbius metalla-aromatic “carbolong” is incorporated into polymers to achieve spatially resolved, repeated and fast healing through a photothermal effect.

Mechanochemistry offers exciting opportunities for molecular-level engineering of stress-responsive properties of polymers. Reactive sites, sometimes called mechanophores, have been reported to increase the material toughness, to make the material mechanochromic or optically healable. Here we show that macrocyclic cinnamate dimers combine these productive stress-responsive modes. The highly thermally stable dimers dissociate on the sub-second timescale when subject to a stretching force of 1–2 nN (depending on isomer). Stretching a polymer of the dimers above this force more than doubles its contour length and increases the strain energy that the chain absorbs before fragmenting by at least 600 kcal per mole of monomer. The dissociation produces a chromophore and dimers are reformed upon irradiation, thus allowing optical healing of mechanically degraded parts of the material. The mechanochemical kinetics, single-chain extensibility, toughness and potentially optical properties of the dissociation products are tunable by synthetic modifications.

Incorporation of small reactive moieties, the reactivity of which depends on externally imposed load (so‐called mechanophores) into polymer chains offers access to a broad range of stress‐responsive materials. Here, we report that polymers incorporating spirothiopyran (STP) manifest both green mechanochromism and load‐induced addition reactions in solution and solid. Stretching a macromolecule containing colorless STP converts it into green thiomerocyanine (TMC), the mechanically activated thiolate moiety of which undergoes rapid thiol–ene click reactions with certain reactive C=C bonds to form a graft or a cross‐link. The unique dual mechanochemical response of STP makes it of potentially great utility both for the design of new stress‐responsive materials and for fundamental studies in polymer physics, for example, the dynamics of physical and mechanochemical remodeling of loaded materials.

In this study, a simple and versatile approach to self-healing polymers and electrically conductive composites is reported.

An azobenzene derivative (F-azo-COOH) was synthesized and could be E/Z isomerized by visible light. The host–guest interaction between F-azo-COOH and cyclodextrins (CDs) in alkaline aqueous solution was studied by NMR spectroscopy for the first time. The results revealed that F-azo-COOH did not form a stable host–guest complex with α-CD. However, both trans- and cis-F-azo-COOH could form stable 1 : 1 complexes with β-CD. Most interestingly, cis-F-azo-COOH could fit the cavity of β-CD more tightly (3.0 ± 0.3 × 10³ M⁻¹) than its trans form (2.1 ± 0.2 × 10³ M⁻¹), which was completely opposite to the conventional azobenzene/β-CD system.

A mechanically active spiropyran (SP) mechanophore is incorporated into the backbone of prepolymer which is further end-capped with ureidopyrimidinone (UPy) or urethane. Strong mechanochromic reaction of SP arises in the bulk films of UPy containing materials whereas much weaker activation occurs in urethane containing counterparts, coincident with their stress–strain responses. The difference in the magnitudes of supramolecular interactions leads to different degrees of chain orientation and strain induced crystallization (SIC) in the bulk and consequently distinct capabilities to transfer the load to the mechanophores. This study may aid the design of novel mechanoresponsive materials whose mechanoresponsiveness can be tailored by tuning supramolecular interactions.

Although existing since the concept of macromolecules, polymer mechanochemistry is a burgeoning field which attracts great scientific interest in its ability to bias conventional reaction pathways and its potential to fabricate mechanoresponsive materials. We review here the effect of topology on the mechanical degradation of polymer chains and the activation of mechanophores in polymer backbones. The chapter focuses on both experimental and theoretical work carried out in the past 70 years. After a general introduction (Sect. 1), where the concept, the history, and the application of polymer mechanochemistry are briefly described, flow fields to study polymer mechanochemistry are discussed (Sect. 2), results of mechanochemistry study are presented for linear polymers (Sect. 3), cyclic polymers (Sect. 4), graft polymers (Sect. 5), star-shaped polymers (Sect. 6), hyperbranched polymers and dendrimers (Sect. 7), and systems with dynamic topology (Sect. 8). Here we focus on (1) experimental results involving the topological effect on the coil-to-stretch transition and the fracture of the polymer chains, (2) the underlying mechanisms and the key factor that determines the mechanical stability of the macromolecules, (3) theoretical models that relate to the experimental observations, and (4) rational design of mechanophores in complex topology to achieve multiple activations according to the existing results observed in chain degradation.