ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the fundamental aspects of various methods involved in the preparation of fibers or filamentous nanostructures via self-assembly techniques. Self-assembly has proven to be successful for the production of a vast variety of nanostructural architectures. A number of polymer systems exhibiting self-assembly have been studied, and among them, block copolymers exhibit a remarkable ability to self-assemble into a number of shapes. The spherical nanocapsules with electropositive cores and polymeric shells could also be suitable for the separation of dyes with different charges and the uniform coloration of shell-compatible homopolymers. Taking advantage of advancements in controlled radical polymerization techniques where the other functional groups can remain intact, the grafting-from approach has been widely used. The pioneering work done by Matyjaszewski and Gao demonstrated the grafting of polymer brushes using click chemistry. Amorphous flexible polymers behave like random coils in bulk and swollen coils in a dissolved state in a selective solvent.
