Polymeric Toroidal Self‐Assemblies: Diverse Formation Mechanisms and Functions

Abstract

In recent years, toroidal nanostructures have become an appealing topic in nanoscience owing to their unique structure and promising applications. Among them, polymeric toroidal self-assemblies have attracted considerable attention because of their manipulability and diversity. Despite the substantial advances in the area of polymeric nanotoroids, the universal formation principles and functions of these toroids have not been sufficiently summarized. This article aims to review recent advances in the formation and function of polymeric nanotoroids. The significant role of theoretical simulations in revealing the formation mechanism and inherent structure of toroidal assemblies is emphasized. Additionally, a perspective on the challenges of this research field is addressed.

Precision Nanocluster‐Based Toroidal and Supertoroidal Frameworks Using Photocycloaddition‐Assisted Dynamic Covalent Chemistry

“…Due to the unique structure and applications of toroids, several approaches including direct assembly, [ 20 ] morphological transition, [ 21 ] and hierarchical system reconstruction [ 22 ] have been used to construct them from organic molecules, polymers, and other building blocks. [ 23 ] However, toroidal superstructures using NC self‐assembly have not been reported in the literature. To better understand the mechanism of toroidal formation, FESEM and AFM imaging of NCs under 365 nm illumination were performed every 1.5 h interval.…”

Hierarchically self-assembled homochiral helical microtoroids

“…Interestingly, molecular chirality has also been found to profoundly affect the nanostructures of interfacial assemblies of amphiphilic surfactants and rod-like viruses by the chiral control of interfacial tension 32 . Although advances have been achieved in the preparation of ring structures by the self-organization of linear polymers, discrete organic molecules and nanoparticles on solvent evaporation on a surface 33 , 34 , most of these interfacial assemblies are at the nanoscale and are prevailingly achiral or mixtures of conglomerates owing to insufficient hierarchical chirality control. Encouraged by our previous progress in the aqueous preparation of helicity-controlled Möbius strips with diameters of 0.5–2.5 μm (ref.…”

Predicting aggregate morphology of sequence-defined macromolecules with recurrent neural networks

“…The self-assembly of block copolymers driven by microphase separation of different constituent monomers is a well-studied phenomenon that has received sustained attention for decades. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] This is due to both the fundamental interest in thermodynamics of soft materials and their ability to form a rich array of aggregate morphologies such as spherical micelles, [12][13][14][15] rods, [16][17][18] strings, 19 vesicles, 20,21 spindles, 22 tubules, 19,23,24 toroids, [25][26][27] membranes, [28][29][30][31] worm-like micelles, [12][13][14][15] and other complex structures. 32,33 As a result of the structural variations that can be obtained (and in some cases also due to their biocompatibility), block copolymers offer a broad range of possible technological applications, including biomaterials, 34 photovoltaic devices, [35][36][37] pharmaceuticals, 38,39 nanoreactors,…”