Living
crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA) is a powerful
approach to tailor nanoparticles with controlled size and spatially
defined compositions from amphiphilic crystalline block copolymers
(BCPs). However, a variety of external constraints usually make the
successful applications of living CDSA difficult. Herein, such constraints
arising from strong hydrogen-bond (H-bond) interactions between unimers
that lead to the failure of living CDSA are effectively overcome via
reduction of the H-bond strength. In particular, by adding a H-bond
disruptor trifluoroethanol (TFE), decreasing the unimer concentration,
and reducing the corona segment length, the H-bond strength between
unimers could be efficiently alleviated, leading to the formation
of uniform two-dimensional (2D) platelets with controlled size and
block comicelles with spatially defined corona chemistries. Moreover,
by selectively anchoring one-dimensional (1D) seeds on the surface
of as-prepared 2D block comicelles through H-bond interaction, the
epitaxial growth of a crystalline BCP from immobilized 1D seeds on
2D platelets illustrates competitive growth behavior in a spatially
confined environment.
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