Fluorescent Nanoparticles from Amphiphilic Block Copolymers with Conjugated Segments

Abstract

Luminescent nanoparticles of conjugated polymers are finding increasing attention in the past few years. Particles with sizes in the regime smaller than ca. 100 nm are desirable in many instances, for example as bright and stable probes for biological imaging. Such particles are generated predominantly by post-polymerization ‘nanoprecipitation’ of hydrophobic conjugated polymers. The resulting dispersions are colloidal stable only at high dilution and sizes are not controllable. To address these issues, this thesis studied nanoparticle formation from amphiphilic block copolymers with a well-defined chain length of a conjugated molecular rigid block. As a prerequisite, a synthetic access to such defect-free molecules was developed. The issue of chain conformation in the nanoparticles was also addressed.