Crystal-controlled polymerization: recent advances in morphology design and control of organic polymer materials

Abstract

Morphologies are important in chemistry and materials science. A wide variety of functional molecules and their assemblies are synthesized on the basis of molecular design. These morphologies, from molecular to nanometer scales, have been summarized in previous nice reviews. Here we focus on recent advances in morphology design and control of organic polymer materials from nanoscopic to macroscopic scales, which are larger than the molecular scale, for which general strategies are now being developed. This review summarizes crystal-controlled polymerization from a new perspective for the morphology design and control of organic polymer materials. Characteristic structures, surfaces, and morphologies of solid crystals are employed for morphology control of organic polymer materials. Morphology control contributes to the emergence and/or improvement of the properties.