Publisher Correction: Roaming-mediated ultrafast isomerization of geminal tri-bromides in the gas and liquid phases.

In the version of this Article originally published, in Fig. 5, the chemical formula Br•CC6H11 should have read Br•CH3C6H11.

Changing Mechanical Strength in Cr(III)- Metallosupramolecular Polymers with Ligand Groups and Light Irradiation.

We have demonstrated the ability to control the mechanical properties of metallosupramolecular materials via choice of ligand binding group, as well as with external light irradiation. These photoresponsive Cr(III)-based materials were prepared from a series of modified hydrogenated poly(ethylene-co-butylene) polymers linked through metal-ligand interactions between a Cr(III) metal center and pyridyl ligand termini of the polymers. The introduction of these Cr(III)-pyridine bonds gave rise to new mechanical and optical properties of the polymer materials. Depending on the type of pyridyl ligand, density functional theory calculations revealed changes in coordination to the Cr(III), which ultimately led to materials with significantly different mechanical properties. Electronic excitation of the Cr(III) materials with 450 and 655 nm CW lasers (800 mW/cm(2)) resulted in generation of excited state photophysical processes which led to temporary softening of the materials up to 143 kPa (41.5%) in storage modulus (G') magnitude. The initial mechanical strength of the materials was recovered when the light stimulus was removed, and no change in mechanical properties was observed with light irradiation where there was no absorbance by the Cr(III) moiety. These materials demonstrate that introduction of metal-ligand bonding interactions into polymers enables the design and synthesis of photoresponsive materials with tunable optical-mechanical properties not seen in traditional polymeric materials.

Roaming-mediated ultrafast isomerization of geminal tri-bromides in the gas and liquid phases.

'Roaming' is a new and unusual class of reaction mechanism that has recently been discovered in unimolecular dissociation reactions of isolated molecules in the gas phase. It is characterized by frustrated bond cleavage, after which the two incipient fragments 'roam' on a flat region of the potential energy surface before reacting with one another. Here, we provide evidence that supports roaming in the liquid phase. We are now able to explain previous solution-phase experiments by comparing them with new ultrafast transient absorption data showing the photoisomerization of gas-phase CHBr3. We see that, upon S0-S1 excitation, gas-phase CHBr3 isomerizes within 100 fs into the BrHCBr-Br species, which is identical to what has been observed in solution. Similar sub-100 fs isomerization is now also observed for BBr3 and PBr3 in solution upon S1 excitation. Quantum chemical simulations of XBr3 (X = B, P or CH) suggest that photochemical reactivity in all three cases studied is governed by S1/S0 conical intersections and can best be described as occurring through roaming-mediated pathways.