Multistimuli Responsive Nanocomposite Tectons for Pathway Dependent Self-Assembly and Acceleration of Covalent Bond Formation

Nanocomposite tectons (NCTs) are a recently developed building block for polymer-nanoparticle composite synthesis, consisting of nanoparticle cores functionalized with dense monolayers of polymer chains that terminate in supramolecular recognition groups capable of linking NCTs into hierarchical structures. In principle, the use of molecular binding to guide particle assembly allows NCTs to be highly modular in design, with independent control over the composition of the particle core and polymer brush. However, a major challenge to realize an array of compositionally and structurally varied NCT-based materials is the development of different supramolecular bonding interactions to control NCT assembly, as well as an understanding of how the organization of multiple supramolecular groups around a nanoparticle scaffold affects their collective binding interactions. Here, we present a suite of rationally designed NCT systems, where multiple types of supramolecular interactions (hydrogen bonding, metal complexation, and dynamic covalent bond formation) are used to tune NCT assembly as a function of multiple external stimuli including temperature, small molecules, pH, and light. Furthermore, the incorporation of multiple orthogonal supramolecular chemistries in a single NCT system makes it possible to dictate the morphologies of the assembled NCTs in a pathway-dependent fashion. Finally, multistimuli responsive NCTs enable the modification of composite properties by postassembly functionalization, where NCTs linked by covalent bonds with significantly enhanced stability are obtained in a fast and efficient manner. The designs presented here therefore provide major advancement for the field of composite synthesis by establishing a framework for synthesizing hierarchically ordered composites capable of complicated assembly behaviors.