Topochemical conversion of an imine- into a thiazole-linked covalent organic framework enabling real structure analysis.

Stabilization of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) by post-synthetic locking strategies is a powerful tool to push the limits of COF utilization, which are imposed by the reversible COF linkage. Here we introduce a sulfur-assisted chemical conversion of a two-dimensional imine-linked COF into a thiazole-linked COF, with full retention of crystallinity and porosity. This post-synthetic modification entails significantly enhanced chemical and electron beam stability, enabling investigation of the real framework structure at a high level of detail. An in-depth study by electron diffraction and transmission electron microscopy reveals a myriad of previously unknown or unverified structural features such as grain boundaries and edge dislocations, which are likely generic to the in-plane structure of 2D COFs. The visualization of such real structural features is key to understand, design and control structure-property relationships in COFs, which can have major implications for adsorption, catalytic, and transport properties of such crystalline porous polymers.

Random Phase Approximation for Periodic Systems Employing Direct Coulomb Lattice Summation.

A method to compute ground state correlation energies from the random phase approximation (RPA) is presented for molecular and periodic systems on an equal footing. The supermatrix representation of the Hartree kernel in canonical orbitals is translation-symmetry adapted and factorized by the resolution of the identity (RI) approximation. Orbital expansion and RI factorization employ atom-centered Gaussian-type basis functions. Long ranging Coulomb lattice sums are evaluated in direct space with a revised recursive multipole method that works also for irreducible representations different from Γ. The computational cost of this RI-RPA method scales as [Formula: see text](N4) with the system size in direct space, N, and as [Formula: see text](Nk2) with the number of sampled k-points in reciprocal space, Nk. For chain and film models, the exploration of translation symmetry with 10 k-points along each periodic direction reduces the computational cost by a factor of around 10-100 compared to equivalent Γ-point supercell calculations.