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REVIEW
Contents Vol 75(2)

Recent Progress in Stimuli-Induced Morphology Transformations of Block Copolymer Assemblies

Haoxiang Zeng A and Derrick A. Roberts https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4663-7475 A B C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Key Center for Polymers and Colloids, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

B Sydney Nano Institute, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

C Corresponding author. Email: derrick.roberts@sydney.edu.au




Haoxiang Zeng received his B.Sc. from Taiyuan University of Technology in China (2016) and M.Sc. from the National University of Singapore (2018). He then worked at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research as a research assistant (2019). In 2021, he started his Ph.D. at the University of Sydney in the group of Dr Derrick Roberts (co-supervised by Dr Markus Müllner), studying controlled shape-transformations of stimuli-responsive polymer self-assemblies.


Derrick A. Roberts received his B.Sc. (2010) and M.Sc. (2012) from the University of Sydney and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar (2013–2016). In 2017, he was awarded a Marie Skłowdowska Curie Fellowship to work with Professor Molly Stevens at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden. In mid-2019, he won an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship to start his independent research group at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on designing stimuli-responsive self-assembled materials.

Australian Journal of Chemistry 75(2) 55-64 https://doi.org/10.1071/CH21200
Submitted: 16 August 2021  Accepted: 15 October 2021   Published: 17 November 2021

Abstract

Synthetic polymers are well known to self-assemble into a wide range of remarkable architectures with properties directly arising from their nanoscale morphologies. The rapid development of post-polymerisation modification reactions and techniques like polymerisation induced self-assembly (PISA) have fuelled new research into ‘smart’ polymer assemblies that can undergo well defined morphological transformations in response to external stimuli. These transformations can be used to modulate the properties of polymer assemblies in a ‘switchable’ fashion, offering great potential to generate smart materials that can dynamically adapt to changes in complex environments. This review aims to highlight key developments from the past five years in this rapidly evolving field, and we discuss innovations in polymer design, stimuli-responsivity mechanisms, transformation behaviours, and potential applications of shape-transformable polymeric nanostructures.

Keywords: block copolymers, stimuli-responsive polymers, self-assembly, morphology transformations, RAFT, ATRP, PISA, nanoparticles, nanostructures, supramolecular chemistry, smart materials, transmission electron microscopy.


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