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In the ACS Nano Perspective Polymers Zippered-Up by Electric Charge Reveal Themselves Tsang, Yu and Granick write: "We call attention to a beautiful embodiment of this modern pattern: writing in this issue of ACS Nano with two equal first authors and eight coauthors in toto, a publication that unites four academic institutions and two countries.Their idea was to build upward from ampholytic triblock terpolymers, designed to form polymer micelles with negatively charged coronae. While their laboratory previously reported such “onion” or “core-shell-corona” structures, Coulombic attractions with additional charged chains give added value: they zipper the micelles together to form interpolyelectrolyte complexes with cationic/neutral diblock copolymers."

"In the current issue of ACS Nano, Löbling, Haataja et al. craft polymeric nanoparticles with a hierarchy of nontrivial surface structures by combining conventional interpolyelectrolyte complexation with steric control from an uncharged copolymer block. Remarkable cylindrical and lamellar nanodomains are produced on the polyionic coronae of spherical micelles. Here, we discuss generalizing this elegant self-assembly strategy and provide speculative perspectives for its future potential for new nanomaterials."

Original article:
Hidden Structural Features of Multicompartment Micelles Revealed by Cryogenic Transmission Electron Tomography
by Tina I. Löbling †, Johannes S. Haataja ‡, Christopher V. Synatschke †, Felix H. Schacher §, Melanie Müller †, Andreas Hanisch †, André H. Gröschel *‡, and Axel H. E. Müller *†∥

ACS Nano, 8 (2014)