Self-Assembly of Amphiphilic Block Copolymers in Selective Solvents

For the last decades, amphiphilic block copolymers have been at the focus of extensive scientific interest, due to their unique properties and numerous potential applications. Their technological potential evolves from their ability to self-assemble into a plethora of morphologically diverse nanostructures such as micelles, polymersomes, cylinders and others. In this chapter, we discuss the basic principles governing amphiphilic block copolymer self-organisation in solutions and the variety of morphologies observed so far, as well as the experimental techniques available for characterising such nanostructures. Some representative examples of self-assembly from nonionic and ionic amphiphilic block copolymers of different macromolecular architectures are also presented.