CRC 1459 B02 - Adaptive polymer morphologies through reversible block fragmentation

Basic data for this project

Description

We will develop dissipative block copolymer nanostructures and explore their potential as sensors, actuators, and memory in adaptive systems and intelligent matter. We will design block copolymers able to dynamically alter their composition through energy-driven supramolecular fragmentation. Multivalency and orthogonality of the reversible host-guest interactions will allow us to tune the composition, stability, lifetime and self-assembly behavior of the block copolymers in aqueous solution. We develop out-of-equilibrium morphologies (micelles, vesicles, cubosomes) with tunable lifetimes that only exists as long as sufficient energy is provided. Intrinsic feedback will stabilize steady states by regulating the energy feed. In the long term we aim to implement these dissipative block copolymer morphologies into nanophotonic neural networks.