Composite soft-matter nanoscale objects: Nanocylinder-templated assembly of nanospheres

We extend the surface layer-by-layer self-assembly strategy to the preparation of block copolymer-based composite nanoconstructs utilizing nanoscale building blocks. These composite materials are well-defined, hierarchically-organized nanoscale objects of a cylindrical form and core-shell morphology, having an outer coating of cationic shell-crosslinked knedel-like nanospheres. In addition to standard characterization techniques, a fluorescence resonance energy transfer experiment is designed and used to study the coating of anionic cylinders by cationic spheres. Expedited HeLa cell uptake is found for the composite nanostructures compared with the non-coated cylinders, indicating that this simple assembly strategy is a facile method to allow the secondary structure to inherit properties from its individual building blocks.