ABSTRACT

Drawing from many of the discoveries in the basic sciences of chemistry, physics, and biology, the field of nanotechnology is growing into a broad, applicationoriented transdiscipline described by as many definitions as applications it generates. Dendrimers, which are dendritric molecules reminiscent of trees generally remain without a precise, consistent definition in the literature. At their most basic, they are repeatedly branching structures comprising monomeric units of any chemical structure—they are thus by definition a form of polymer. In dendrimer chemistry, each separate, identical “branch” is generally termed a dendron. Dendrimers are assembled in stepwise fashion by one of the two general methods: divergent or convergent synthesis. Though stepwise schemes can involve many steps and much time, the exquisite control over size, uniformity, and shape in bulk solutions makes such methods nevertheless quite valuable from the imaging and therapeutic perspective. chemical vapor deposition (CVD) offers a more precise, scalable technique for nanotube formation.