Intramolecular structure and dynamics in computationally designed peptide-based polymers displaying tunable chain stiffness

Polymers assembled using computationally designed coiled coil bundlemers display tunable stiffness via control of interbundlemer covalent connectivity as confirmed using small-angle neutron scattering. Neutron spin echo spectroscopy reveals that rigid rod polymers show a decay rate Γ∼Q2 (Q is the scattering vector) expected of straight cylinders. Semirigid polymers assembled using bundlemers linked via 4-armed organic linker show flexible segmental dynamics at mid-Q and Γ∼Q2 behavior at high Q. The results give insight into linker flexibility-dependent interbundlemer dynamics in the hybrid polymers.