Laterally nanostructured vesicles, polygonal bilayer sheets, and segmented wormlike micelles.

Li, Zhibo; Hillmyer, Marc A; Lodge, Timothy P · Nano Lett · 2006

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We report the formation of vesicles with a laterally nanostructured membrane by self-assembly of "miktoarm" star terpolymers, that is, macromolecules with three chemically distinct arms. The lateral structure consists of approximately hexagonally packed fluorocarbon channels with 4.1 nm radii, immersed in a continuous, two-dimensional hydrocarbon bilayer. We also show that the assembly of these vesicles proceeds via metastable polygonal, faceted bilayer sheets.

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