Fig. 1
Controllable strategy for morphology evolution with a pH-switched on/off function. Schematic representation of the living controlled thiol–disulfide exchange reaction and the pH-triggered self-assembled evolution. When the thiol–disulfide exchange reaction is activated in the presence of catalytic thiols in pH 12 solutions, the selective core/shell separation gradually leads to the continuous connections of POSS-embedded cores; in this case, the self-assembled evolution is performed from unimolecular micelles to the elliptic nanoparticles. Once neutralizing the system pH to 7 at any moment, the exchange reaction is deactivated, and thus no further morphology evolution is conducted any more. However, these stable inert sites can be reactivated by basification whenever needed, and the trapped morphology evolution can return back on the previous track
