Prediction of a Novel Electromechanical Response in Polar Polymers with Rigid Backbones: Contrasting Furan-Derived Nanothreads to Poly(Vinylidene Fluoride)

Syn furan nanothreads have all oxygen atoms arranged on one side of the thread backbone; these polar threads present intriguing opportunities in electromechanical response owing to their rigid ladder-like backbone. We retrained a C/H/O reactive force field to simulate their response to external electric field for both end-anchored individual threads and bulk nanothread crystals, contrasting the results to those for poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) polymer. Whereas the field induces a length-independent torque in PVDF through backbone rotation about σ bonds, furan-derived nanothreads generate a length-dependent torque by progressively twisting their rigid backbone. This mode of response couples the rotational history of the electric field to axial tension in the anchored thread. In simulations of densely packed syn furan nanothread crystals without anchors, the crystals pole in a field (∼3 GV/m at 300 K) similar to that seen in simulations of PVDF, suggesting that crystals of polar nanothreads can be ferroelectric.