Figure 5.

(a) Schematic illustration of how increasing the concentration of the polymerization results in the suppression of intramolecular cyclization and the formation of stress-supporting strands. (b) Plot of uniaxial tensile testing for NCIs synthesized at polymerization concentrations of 0.11 M (red), 0.22 M (cyan), and 0.45 M (magenta) samples. Testing was performed at a loading rate of 10 μm/s. (c) Tan(δ) profiles for NCIs synthesized at 0.11 M (red) and 0.45 M (magenta) polymerization concentrations. A 0.11 M sample synthesized at nx = 10 (black) is included to emphasize the strong role that polymerization concentration plays in D3. (d) Plot of Gc values determined via PIF of PSAs synthesized at varied polymerization concentrations. The strong dependence of Gc on polymerization concentration confirms the rationale of the D3 concept.