Nanotechnological Applications of Block Copolymers in Biomedicine

Block copolymers (BCP) are comprised of at least two different, immiscible polymers that are covalently linked. These materials evolve spontaneously in organized structures with domains of nanometer size. With dependence on the ratio of each polymer, BCPs are able to form lamellae, cylinders, spheres, or more complicated structures. They have been demonstrated to be of broad importance in nanotechnological applications in several different fields, including nanostructured membranes, BCP templates for nanoparticle synthesis, photonic crystals, high-density information storage media and nanomedicine. Their applicability to nanotechnology stems from the scale of the microdomains and the convenient tunability of size, shape, periodicity and properties afforded by changing their molecular parameters.