Development of a new force field for polynorbornene

A new force field has been customized for the variation of polynorbornene that contains a bicycloheptane group in the backbone structure. The force field was developed from ab initio density functional theory (DFT), and semiempirical electronic structure calculations for both stereochemical dimers of the 2,3 exo-exo isomer of polynorbornene. The bond length and bond angle parameters were determined using the HF/6-311G** ab initio SCF method. The intrinsic torsion potential was determined using the AM1 semiempirical method and the van der Waals parameters are kept same as in the Dreiding 2.21 force field. Both the bonded and torsional energy functions compared well to DFT calculations. The equilibrium geometry and the torsional energetics of the customized force field differ significantly from generic force fields such as Dreiding. Comparisons to experimentally determined geometry and infrared and Raman spectra were used to determine the optimum ab initio and semiempirical method to use for force field parametrization. The new force field reproduces a polynorbornene dimer crystal structure to a high degree of accuracy.