Linear-dendritic block copolymers: The state of the art and exciting perspectives

Concurrent with the rapid development of both dendrimers and hyperbranched polymers, a novel class of block copolymer architectures has emerged from the combination of these dendritic architectures with linear chains, the "linear-dendritic block copolymers" (LDBCs). This review gives a comprehensive summary of the state of the art in this rapidly developing field from pioneering early work to promising recent approaches.The different strategies leading to these hybrid architectures with either perfect dendrimer/dendron building blocks or imperfect, yet more conveniently accessible hyperbranched segments, are reviewed and compared. The consequences of the unusual polymer topology for supramolecular structures both in solution and in the solid state are summarized, and important differences in comparison with classical linear block copolymer structures are highlighted. Current challenges in the area of block copolymers, nanotechnology and potential applications of linear-dendritic block copolymers are also considered.