Shaped Hairy Polymer Nanoobjects

Shaped hairy polymer nanoobjects are defined as a kind of polymeric particles with persistent geometric shape and densely tethered polymer hairs. Their size, at least in one dimension, should not exceed 100 nm. Components of the nanoobjects are mainly organic polymers, and therefore, they exhibit viscoelasticity and stimuli responsibility in general. Namely, they are soft nanomatter, greatly differing from those stiff and rigid inorganic nanoparticles. While spherical polymeric nanoparticles have been studied intensively, much less attention has been paid to those nonspherical hairy polymer nanoparticles like cylindrical and lamellar ones. The reasons are because fabrication of the shaped soft nanoparticles is still difficult and also less information has been known about the shape-induced properties, especially in biomedical application. In recent years, scientists are realizing that the shape of nanoparticles does matter to their properties of plasma circulation in mice and cell uptake, revealing a nearly unexplored area. In this Perspective, the author would like to focus on these soft nanoobjects with shapes and tethered polymeric hairs by introducing how to shape them, to densely tether polymer hairs, and why the hair and the shape are important.