Polymer-blend microparticles: Anew approach to nanoscale composites with tunable properties

Recently, enormous commercial and scientific at tention has been focused on mul t i -component polymer systems as a means for producing new materials on the micron and nanometer scale wi th specifically tailored material, elect r ical and opt ica l p roper t i e s . Composi te po lymer particles, or polymer alloys, wi th specifically tailored proper t ies could find many novel uses in such fields as electro-optic and luminescent devices,[1] conduct ing materials, [2] and hybrid inorganic-organic polymer alloys. [3] However, the problem of phase separation from bulkimmiscible componen t s in solut ion often poses a significant barr ier to producing many commercial ly and scientifically relevant homogeneous polymer blends.[4,5,6] The route typically taken in trying to form homogeneous blends of immiscible polymers is to use compatibi l izers to reduce interfacial tension. Recently, a number of different groups have examined phaseseparat ion in copolymer systems to fabr ica te fascinat ing and in t r ica te mesoand micro-phase separa ted structures wi th a rich variety of morphologies. [7,8]