Toward folding control in oligomers and polymers

A facile synthetic route affording polycondensable monomers containing alky l chains connected to a rigid aromatic core allowing chain folding was deve loped. The stepwise condensation of the monomer was shown to afford dimer, tetramer and was further proved to be applicable to higher oligomers. Such oligomers composed of "tinker toy" building blocks may be of interest for i nducing controlled conformations in nanostructured materials. (C) 1999 Publ ished by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.