2007 Volume 80 Issue 9 Pages 360-366
In general, each segment of block copolymer may possibly be phase-separated at molecular level, followed by self-organizing to form various molecular assemblies in bulk as well as solution. These assemblies are nano-sized, specially shaped, and three-dimensional well-ordered supra-structured materials with many potential applications and expected to be utilized as organic nano-devices in. the field of nanotechnology. This review describes recent advances on creation of nano-materials based on such molecular assemblies via self-organization of block copolymers. In order to practically use self-organized molecular assemblies, they are isolated as nano-materials by the fixation of objective domain, followed by removal of other domain in molecular assemblies. Furthermore, nano-materials are also created by utilizing other molecular assemblies as templates. For example, conductive poly (pyrrole) nano-wire could be obtained by the polymerization of pyrrole introduced into a nano-porous monolith template, followed by removal of this template with a selective solvent. Several designed nano-objects are also obtained by fixation of the micelles corresponding to molecular assemblies formed in selective solvents under selected conditions. All materials herein demonstrated are quite novel nano-sized materials with many characteristics mentioned above and are expected as essential candidates of organic nano-devices in the very near future.
