Development of advanced stimuli-responsive polymers

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Stimuli-responsive polymers (SRPs) can change their conformations and properties by reacting to a signal that may be a change in temperature, pH or chemical composition of the surrounding, a stress, light irradiation, an electric or magnetic field and ultrasound. Holding great promises for diverse applications such as drug delivery, sensors and smart devices, SRPs represent an active research area. Our proposed program aims at developing new SRPs whose reactions to a stimulus can be controlled in a more complex and more precise manner than the systems known to date, and to gain new fundamental knowledge and understanding on the relationship between the responsiveness of a given polymer and its structure. Our basic strategy is to use rational and creative molecular and polymer designs to address a number of fundamental questions, and our studies will cover block copolymer (BCP) micellar aggregates, BCP brushes on a substrate, shape-memory polymers and optically controllable processing of BCP nanostructures. Our long-term objective is to contribute to establishing the general rules in designing SRPs for specific applications.