Sunday, October 3, 2010

Conformation transition from right- to left-handed EMACs?

It is quite easy to see that the beaded model is just like a rigid rod with a long persistent length. The surrounding ligands can spiral around the central axis either right- or left-handedly, corresponding to the right- or left-handed EMACs. Examining the bead model of an EMAC, one should notice that the surrounding ligands are a little bit flexible with respect to the central axis. For instance, it is not hard to turn a right-handed EMAC into left-handed EMAC. This might suggest that the same kind of transition could easily occur in the microscopic world. One way to prove that this kind of change really exists is to perform temperature-dependent NMR spectra. Hopefully, I can convince Prof. S.-M. Peng to do this experiment someday.

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