Well-Defined Supramacromolecular Assemblies for Templating Inorganic Architectures. The synthesis of well-defined linear and dendritic polymers is well established, and many research groups have directed their efforts toward understanding the assembly of polymers in both the solution and solid states. Polymeric self assembly, particularly with block copolymers, into micelles, vesicles, toroids, and worm-like assemblies has gained increasing attention in recent years for applications ranging from microelectronics to drug delivery. Typically, the architectures formed in solution are dependent upon the length of the individual blocks and solvent-driven phase separation. The ability to control the self-assembly of polymers despite their length and constitution could potentially be useful for creating functional nanostructures of controlled shape and size.

Recently, we employed generation-4 poly(amidoamine) (G4-PAMAM) dendrimer with sixty four amino groups located at the periphery as a macromolecular template for self assembly. Polyethylene glycol (Mn = 5000) possessing a carboxylic acid functionality at a single terminus interacts with the peripheral dendrimer amines. Spherical micelle-like assemblies were formed when the carboxylic acid of the linear polymer interacted with the amino groups of the dendrimer to reversibly anchor the polymers to the dendrimer surface. Interestingly, the dendritic core of these assemblies is suitable for incorporating a number of metallic salts such as Cu2+, Ni2+, Pt2+, Pd2+, etc. which can be further reduced to afford metal containing nanoparticles (bearing a polymeric shell) for magnetic media and catalysis.