"Polymer conformation, Dynamics, and Morphology"

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My research is focused on developing new fundamental scientific knowledge about polymers as materials in areas where one can have an impact on modern technology. Much of our effort is devoted to the creation and study of polymer objects that form stable colloids in solution, with a well-defined shape and with nanometer or micrometer dimensions. In this proposal I describe two very different projects of this type. 1) Block copolymer micelles. Since 2007, we have published 5 seminal papers (with I. Manners) describing the formation of nanowire micelles in solution with unprecedented control of micelle dimensions. This work has changed our current understanding of the mechanism of block copolymer micelle formation, particularly when the core-forming polymer is crystalline. In these studies, polyferrocenylsilane (PFS) was the core-forming block, still the only type of block copolymer that can form nanowire micelles with a uniform and controllable length. Here I describe new experiments to provide a deeper mechanistic understanding of why and how such control of self-assembly is possible. This knowledge will be used to generalize this behavior to other block polymers in which the crystalline block is a conjugated polymer. These molecules should be able to form conducting nanowire micelles, with the possibility of incorporating them as interconnects in semiconductor devices. 2) In a second project, we will develop a new class of materials, thermostable microgels, as a supporting framework for DNA amplification (rolling circle or polymerase chain reaction thermocycling). Microgels are solvent-swollen crosslinked polymer particles. Many groups, including mine, study aqueous microgels for biological and other applications in the temperature range of 25-40 C, but there are only rare examples of microgels stable in water at high temperatures (60-100 C), and our microgels will have functional groups for attaching biological molecules such as DNA primers. With YF Li (McMaster) we will explore the use of these microgels for high temperature DNA amplification and DNA sequencing.