(758b) Block Copolymer Derived Nanostructured Surfaces: Templating Confined Surface Reactions

Polymer-inorganic hybrid materials that yield highly crystalline and hierarchically structured composites remain a challenging to realize, yet continue to entice for their applications from new synthetic biomaterials to improved catalysis. Block copolymer assembly, with the ability to produce periodically ordered structures over long ranges, has been used to structure direct a variety of inorganic materials, but relies primarily on spatial confinement. In contrast, proteins that assemble biological hierarchical composites such as nacre and bone utilize self-assembly pathways in which the chemical moiety localization in the protein matrix (determined by the amino acid sequence and chain folding) directs the crystal phase and orientation of inorganic materials. Here we introduce a system based on a reactive block copolymer that can be tailored with a variety of chemical moieties to introduce independent chemical and spatial control on the 10s of nanometer length scale. The versatility of this system is demonstrated with localized thin film functionalization by amino acids and ultrasmall silica nanoparticles, and this platform could produce new approaches to catalyst and sensing technologies. Implications for inorganic growth control over multiple length scales will be discussed.