Polymers made from chains of atoms other than carbon are of considerable fundamental and applied interest. However, to date, the development of inorganic polymer science has been held back by the synthetic problem of joining atoms of main group elements or transition metals into long polymer chains. This talk will focus on efforts in our group to use ring-opening polymerization as a route to high molecular weight polymers which possess transition metals such as iron in the main chain and the properties of the resulting materials. The use of living polymerizations to prepare polyferrocene materials with well-defined structures (e.g. block copolymers) which self-assemble into a variety of supramolecular architectures with potential nanostructure applications will also be described.

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