End-functionalized polymers: Versatile building blocks for soft materials

We present a concise review of telechelic polymers of various architectures, focusing on the structure, solute solvent interactions, aggregation processes, equilibrium and dynamical properties and applications. Telechelics are macromolecules with functionalized, mutually attractive end-groups, which assume a variety of conformations that depend on solvent quality, salinity and pH of the solvent, as well as on the particular macromolecular architecture. In concentrated solutions, telechelic polymers offer unique possibilities to create novel materials with distinct rheological properties. Depending on chemistry and architecture, they can create percolating clusters and transient gels or they can show macroscopic phase separation into a dilute and a structured dense phase. The possibility to externally steer the morphology of these structures and the concomitant physical properties of the materials renders telechelic polymers into important and versatile building blocks for modern materials science.