Bottom-up device fabrication via the seeded growth of polymer-based nanowires

Abstract

Living crystallisation-driven self-assembly facilitates the bottom-up assembly of electronic devices.

Anchorage-Dependent Living Supramolecular Self-Assembly of Polymeric Micelles

“…Such a system, however, is not anchorage-dependent, and the micelles can still grow when the corona does not touch the substrate, allowing micelles to protrude into the solution 8 or to cross each other on the substrate, which leads to undesired networking. 10 As a first step toward the fabrication of anchoragedependent cell-like nanostructures, we focus, here, on the preparation of 1D micelles that would grow in a living manner only via intimate contact with the substrate. To reach the delicate balance between micelle adhesion and growth, we foresaw that the core of the micelle should firmly adhere to the substrate while being mobile enough to rearrange onto the surface as it grows.…”

“…In polymer science, vesicles , and amyloid fibrils , have been mimicked by polymersomes and 1-dimensional (1D) core-crystalline micelles via the solution self-assembly of BCPs. Since they were first reported, these micelles have evolved from being “simple” mimics toward sophisticated nano-objects that are promising tools for biomedical − and electronic ,, applications. Here, the living and controllable anchorage-dependent growth of elongated micelles composed of polypeptide-based BCPs can be seen as a first step toward the fabrication of anchorage-dependent structures.…”

“…At first sight, such specification seems prohibitive since micelle growth requires the core-forming block to be mobile enough to add onto the extremities of the growing micelles. In the recent examples that have been reported of elongated micelles grown onto surfaces by crystallization-driven self-assembly − (CDSA), the corona-forming block is used as a linkage that keeps the micelles attached to the surface. Such a system, however, is not anchorage-dependent, and the micelles can still grow when the corona does not touch the substrate, allowing micelles to protrude into the solution or to cross each other on the substrate, which leads to undesired networking …”

Self‐Assembly of Copolymers Containing Crystallizable Blocks: Strategies and Applications

“…creasing maturity of CDSA or PI-CDSA technology. [16,20,21] Combined with the characteristics of crystalline polymers with special morphologies, the applications of the prepared nano-objects have been widely exploited in biomedical material, [37,66,110,[168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176][177][178][179][180] optoelectronics, [142,[181][182][183][184][185][186] catalyst loading, [187][188][189][190] and other fields. [191][192][193][194][195][196]…”

“…[182,184] Using a bottom-up method, Houlton et al produced the nano-electronic devices via a CDSA process. [185] The seed micelles with PFS crystalline core and poly(3-octylthiophene) (P3OT) peripheral corona were first formed from triblock copolymer PFS-b-PDMS-b-P3OT in decane. Then, the seed micelles were adsorbed onto the Au surface by immersing Au-on-Si substrates in the decane solution.…”