Polydisperse block copolymers: Don't throw them away

Various interesting features of polydisperse block copolymers that can self-assemble to form nanostructured morphologies are discussed. Block copolymers hold great potential for nanomaterial synthesis and have been widely studied by the polymer science community. The discovery of living anionic polymerization has helped in the synthesis and evaluation of these hybrid macromolecules. Synthetic polymer chemists are motivated to reproducibly prepare block copolymers with controlled levels of polydispersity as this will provide a way to tune the behavior of these hybrid macromolecules. Multicomponent blends of block copolymers with overall molecular weights but quite different compositions are also studied in an effort to decouple molecular weight distribution and composition distribution.