Self-assembly

New building blocks are one of the most important factors in the research of molecular self-assembly. For polymer self-assembly, many polymer precursors like linear block copolymers, star copolymer, graft copolymers, brush polymers and dendrimers have been used as building blocks. We are the pioneers in studying the self-assembly behaviors of amphiphilic hyperbranched polymers. From year 2004 to now, we have prepared many supramolecular aggregates at all scales and dimemsions, such as macroscopic tubes, physical gels, micro- or nano-vesicles, fibers, spherical micelles, honeycomb films and large compound vesicles, by direct solution self-assembly, interfacial self-assembly, or hybrid self-assembly of amphiphilic hyperbranched polymers. The unique characteristics as well as the mechanisms in the self-assembly of hyperbranched polymers have also been disclosed. Very recently, we are more focused on the self-assembly of amphiphilic alternating copolymers, which also show great potentials as the new kind of building blocks in self-assembly from the structures, functions and applications.

1. Yan, D. Y.; Zhou, Y. F.; Hou, J., “Supramolecular Self-assembly of Macroscopic Tubes”, Science, 2004, 303, 65.

2. Zhou, Y. F.; Yan, D. Y., “Supramolecular Self-Assembly of Giant Polymer Vesicles With Controlled Size”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2004, 43, 4896.

3. Hong, H. Y.; Mai, Y. Y.; Zhou, Y. F.*; Yan, D. Y.*; Cui, J., “Self-Assembly of Large Multimolecular Micelles from Hyperbranched Star Copolymers”, Macromol. Rapid Commun., 2007, 28, 591.

4. Mai, Y. Y.; Zhou, Y. F.; Yan, D. Y., “Synthesis and Size-Controllable Self-Assembly of A Novel Amphiphilic Hyperbranched Multi-Arm Copolyether”, Macromolecules, 2005, 38, 8679.

5. Jin, H. B.; Zhou, Y. F.*; Huang, W.; Yan, D. Y., “Polymerization-like Multilevel Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Polymer Vesicles into Macroscopic Superstructures with Controlled Complexity”, Langmuir, 2010, 26, 14512.

6. Jiang, W. F.; Zhou, Y. F.;* Yan, D. Y., “Hyperbranched polymer vesicles: from self-assembly, characterization, mechanisms, and properties to applications”, Chem. Soc. Rev., 2015, 44, 3874.