Cylindrical crystalline-core micelles: pushing the limits of solution self-assembly

Abstract

Within the last few years, crystallisation-induced self-assembly of block copolymers (BCs) in solution has become more and more attractive for the production of well-defined cylindrical crystalline-core micelles (cCCMs). The “livingness” of this process has been shown for a number of crystallisable blocks and allows fine tuning of the length as well as the length distribution of such structures. This unprecedented control is hardly achievable in the self-assembly of purely amorphous BCs. Furthermore, in an analogy to living/controlled polymerisation methods, the epitaxial growth of different BCs onto preformed cCCMs allows for the preparation of complex micellar architectures, e.g., cylindrical block co-micelles. This highlight tries to provide an overview over recent developments in crystallisation-induced self-assembly of BCs with a particular focus on one-dimensional (1D) micellar nanostructures.