 Staggered conformation

In organic chemistry, a staggered conformation is a chemical conformation of an ethane-like moiety abcX–Ydef in which the substituents a, b, and c are at the maximum distance from d, e, and f. This requires the torsion angles to be 60°.Such a conformation exists in any open chain single chemical bond connecting two sp3-hybridised atoms, and is normally a conformational energy minimum.