Advanced Materials, Vol.14, No.3, 198-198, 2002
Scaffolding of polymers by supramolecular nanoribbons
Supramolecular nanoribbons formed by dendron rod-coil molecules show ordered bire-fringence! The authors describe here how self-assembling block molecules containing dendritic, rodlike, and flexible segments can cause certain monomers to gel into ordered birefringent media. As demonstrated in the Figure even an amorphous polymer such as polystyrene (left) can be transformed into a birefringent solid (right). [GRAPHICS] Scaffolding of Polymers by Supramolecular Nanoribbons.