Among the many ways to divide up polymeric materials, one classification concerns the means of formation; one class being optically curable while the other is polymerized only through thermally activated pathways. There are a multitude of advantages shared by optically-generated polymers, such as rapid on-demand polymerization, optically-resolved control over the extent of polymerization, and optically-resolved control over physical properties. At the same time, thermally-generated polymers provide chemical and physical properties that are not yet represented by optically-generated systems. Thus, there is a desire to bring the benefits of optical polymerization to these thermally activated systems. In this talk, we will demonstrate that the photothermal effect of nanoscale materials (i.e., the conversion of light to thermal energy) provides nanoscale control over the resulting temperatures, thereby realizing optically-resolved control over thermally-activated polymerization. In addition, we show that, despite the fact that the heat is localized on the nanometer scale, it can be used to drive bulk-scale transformations---enabling the rapid generation of polymers over the meter scale, while preserving nanometer control over resulting physical properties.

Optically-resolved control over the generation and physical properties of thermally generated polymers via photothermal heating by nanoparticles

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