How ill-defined constituents produce well-defined nanoparticles: Effect of polymer dispersity on the uniformity of copolymeric micelles

Autor: Mantha, Sriteja, Qi, Shuanhu, Barz, Matthias, Schmid, Friederike
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Druh dokumentu: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.026002
Popis: We investigate the effect of polymer length dispersity on the properties of self-assembled micelles in solution by self-consistent field calculations. Polydispersity stabilizes micelles by raising the free energy barriers of micelle formation and dissolution. Most importantly, it significantly reduces the size fluctuations of micelles: Block copolymers of moderate polydispersity form more uniform particles than their monodisperse counterparts. We attribute this to the fact that the packing of the solvophobic monomers in the core can be optimized if the constituent polymers have different length.
Comment: 4 main figures and 4 supplementary figures. Manuscript accepted for publication in Physical Review Materials
Databáze: arXiv