Self-assembly of well-defined ferrocene triblock copolymers and their template synthesis of ordered iron oxide nanoparticles.

Well-defined ferrocene-containing triblock copolymers were synthesized by atom transfer radical polymerization and self-assembled into highly ordered hexagonal arrays of cylinders via solvent annealing. The thin films were further used as a template and converted into highly ordered iron oxide nanoparticles (α-Fe2O3) by UV/ozonolysis and thermal pyrolysis.