Rationally designed polymer hosts of fullerene.

A class of its own: A new class of fullerene C60 hosts--polymeric in nature--has been developed by careful design of the molecular structure of the polymer repeat unit and the mode of interaction between the repeat unit and C60 (see picture). As these hosts are synthesized by free-radical polymerization, polymer hosts with various chemical compositions and architectures can be constructed readily by appropriate design of the receptor monomer.