TY - JOUR
T1 - Creating Biomorphic Barbed and Branched Mesostructures in Solution through Block Copolymer Crystallization
AU - Jia, Lin
AU - Guerin, Gerald
AU - Lu, Yijie
AU - Yu, Qing
AU - Manners, Ian
AU - Winnik, Mitchell A.
PY - 2018/12/21
Y1 - 2018/12/21
N2 - Branched and barbed structures are common in nature but rare in nanoscale or mesoscale objects formed by bottom-up self-assembly. Key characteristics of the morphology of natural objects, such as various types of insects and conifer branches, is that despite their similarities no two individual objects are exactly the same. Here we report the self-assembly conditions for a series of poly(ferrocenyldimethylsilane)-block-polyisoprene (PFS-b-PI) diblock copolymers that generate structures with biomorphic shapes. All of these polymers yield long uniform fiber-like micelles with a crystalline PFS core in decane. Injection of a concentrated THF solution of these polymers into THF/decane mixtures, however, leads to barbed and branched mesostructures, with shapes that depend upon the final THF content of the mixed solvent. Interestingly, evaporation of the THF from suspensions of the colloidal biomorphic structures led to elongated fiber-like structures.
AB - Branched and barbed structures are common in nature but rare in nanoscale or mesoscale objects formed by bottom-up self-assembly. Key characteristics of the morphology of natural objects, such as various types of insects and conifer branches, is that despite their similarities no two individual objects are exactly the same. Here we report the self-assembly conditions for a series of poly(ferrocenyldimethylsilane)-block-polyisoprene (PFS-b-PI) diblock copolymers that generate structures with biomorphic shapes. All of these polymers yield long uniform fiber-like micelles with a crystalline PFS core in decane. Injection of a concentrated THF solution of these polymers into THF/decane mixtures, however, leads to barbed and branched mesostructures, with shapes that depend upon the final THF content of the mixed solvent. Interestingly, evaporation of the THF from suspensions of the colloidal biomorphic structures led to elongated fiber-like structures.
KW - biomorphism
KW - crystallization-driven self-assembly
KW - morphology transformation
KW - solvent mixtures
KW - supermicelles
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057301430&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/anie.201809605
DO - 10.1002/anie.201809605
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
C2 - 30358058
AN - SCOPUS:85057301430
VL - 57
SP - 17205
EP - 17210
JO - Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
JF - Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
SN - 1433-7851
IS - 52
ER -