Roles of polymer ligands in nanoparticle stabilization

Both inorganic nanoparticles and polymers have become ubiquitous components of nanostructured systems. The development of an understanding of the interactions between these components will be of crucial importance in the further elaboration of these systems. This review touches upon two aspects of control over surface chemistry in inorganic nanoparticles with polymer ligands: (1) the effect of polymer ligands on accessibility of the inorganic nanoparticle surface to other species, such as is necessary in catalysis; and (2) the design of polymer ligands that can be modified to enable compatibility of the entire polymer-coated nanoparticle with a broad variety of other materials.