Urea-bearing copolymers via RAFT polymerization for controlling macromolecular assemblies

POLY 13

Alshakim Nelson, alshak@us.ibm.com, Amanda Kamps, and Teddy Magbitang. IBM Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120
Supramolecular polymers hold potential for a variety of applications ranging from drug delivery to frameworks for device fabrication. The self-assembly of these materials is driven by noncovalent forces—including electrostatic, hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, and van der Waals interactions—to afford noncovalent networks tunable in strength and reversibility. By employing molecular recognition, the self-assembly, of polymeric materials can be controlled at the nanoscale. This talk will present our current work in exploring polymeric assemblies driven by urea-urea and urea-carboxylate interactions.