A Versatile “Click” Chemistry Precursor of Functional Polystyrene Nanoparticles

Abstract

Functional nanoparticles (NPs) are becoming important building blocks in the emerging fields of nanomedicine, nanolithography and nanoelectronics, among others. [1] Several unexpected nanoscale effects have been discovered for these new materials in recent years. [2-4] Useful synthetic routes to single-molecule polymeric NPs in the 2 – 15 nm size range with welldefined arrangement of functional groups are certainly scarce in spite of the enormous potential predicted for all-polymer nanocomposites. [5] Intramolecular cross-linking under appropriate (e.g. diluted) reaction conditions of individual macromolecules containing complementary cross-linkable groups along the polymer chain is one of these approaches. [6-