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

Recently, enormous commercial and scientific attention has been focused on multi-component polymer systems as a means for producing new materials on the micron and nanometer scale with specifically tailored material, electrical and optical properties. Composite polymer particles, or polymer alloys, with specifically tailored properties could find many novel uses in such fields as electro-optic and luminescent devices,[1] conducting materials, [2] and hybrid inorganic-organic polymer alloys.[3] However, the problem of phase separation from bulk-immiscible components in solution often poses a significantbarrier to producing many commercially 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 compatibilizers to reduce interfacial tension. Recently, a number of different groups have examined phase-separation in copolymer systems to fabricate fascinating and intricate meso- and micro-phase separated structures with a rich variety of mor-phologies. [7,8]