Solution self-assembly, polyferrocenylsilane block copolymers

This chapter focuses on polyferrocenylsilanes (PFSs) where iron and silicon are in the main chain. Subsequently, PFS block copolymers will be reviewed. These materials represent an area of rapidly growing interest as a result of their self-assembly into phase-separated metal-rich nanodomain structures in thin films and micelles in block-selective solvents. The resulting nanostructured materials have a wealth of potential applications and recent breakthroughs in this area are discussed. The subject matter of the chapter is divided up into subsections covering PFS homopolymer and block copolymer synthesis, solution and solid-state self-assembly and applications of the latter, which have been extensively developed by ourselves and our collaborators and also by other research groups. 

Recently, the enhanced control of bulk and surface ordering of polypeptides has been employed to drive the processing and self-assembly of conductive rigid segments. Mainly triblock copolymer structures have been studied (see the following section). Manners and Winnik (Wang et al., 2008) synthesized a new type of metaUopolymer-polypeptide block copolymer poly(ferrocenyldimethylsilane)-fc-poly(8-benzyloxycarbonyl-L-lysine) (PFS-( -PZLLys) and studied their self-organization behavior in both the bulk state and in solution. In the bulk state, a cylindrical in-lamellar structure was observed in a compositionally asymmetric sample. Rod-like micelles with a polyferrocenylsilane core formed in a polypeptide selective solvent alone or in the presence of a common solvent. 

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