[11] How ill-defined constituents produce well-defined nanoparticles: Effect of polymer dispersity on the uniformity of copolymeric micelles
Published in Physical Review Materials, 2019
Recommended citation: Sriteja Mantha, Shuanhu Qi, Matthias Barz, and Friederike Schmid (2019). " How ill-defined constituents produce well-defined nanoparticles: Effect of polymer dispersity on the uniformity of copolymeric micelles ." Physical Review Materials . 3, 026002. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.026002
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.
Recommended citation: Sriteja Mantha, Shuanhu Qi, Matthias Barz, and Friederike Schmid (2019). “How ill-defined constituents produce well-defined nanoparticles: Effect of polymer dispersity on the uniformity of copolymeric micelles” Physical Review Materials . 3, 026002.