LAUSR

During the past few decades, the study of single polymer chain has attracted considerable attentions with the goal of exploring the structure-property relationship of polymers. It still, however, remains challenging due to the variability and low atomic resolution of amorphous single polymer chain. Here, we demonstrated a new strategy to visualize single metallo-polymer chain with hexameric or trimeric supramolecule as repeat unit, in which Ru(II) with strong coordination and Fe(II) with weak coordination were combined together in a step-wise manner. With the help of ultrahigh-vacuum, low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (UHV-LT-STM) and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS), we were able to directly visualize both Ru(II) and Fe(II), which act as staining reagents on the repeat units, and thus providing de-tailed structure information for the single polymer chain. As such, the direct visualization of single random polymer chain is realized to enhance the characterization of polymers at single-molecule level.