Sequence-controlled polymerizations: the next Holy Grail in polymer science? Review

The aim of this short perspective article is to sensitize polymer chemists to the importance of controlling comonomer sequences. During the last twenty years, our scientific community has made impressive progress in controlling the architecture of synthetic macromolecules (i.e. chain length, shape and composition). In comparison, our tools for controlling polymer microstructures (i.e. sequences and tacticity) are still very rudimentary. However, as learned from Nature, sequence-controlled polymers are most likely the key toward functional sub-nanometric materials