Hierarchical assembly of coil-rod-coil peptide-based copolymers

Coil-rod-coil block copolymers have been shown to exhibit an array of morphologies, from crystalline lamellae, to novel, three-dimensional tetragonal lattices, depending upon coil length and molecular weight. We have been motivated by recent advances in controlled polymerization techniques and the opportunity to develop bio-inspired copolymer motifs to explore the hierarchical self-assembly of coil-rod-coil peptide-based copolymers with variations in peptidic rod length. Thin films were characterized using atomic force microscopy, x-ray scattering and thermal analysis techniques showing random sphere-like nanostructures with alpha-helix peptide secondary structure. Our goal is to utilize these materials to engineer the interface of hierarchically-designed, nature-inspired elastomers.