Depletion Interactions: A New Control Parameter for the Self-Assembly of Diblock Copolymer Micelles

Journal Article · Fri Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.99.137802· OSTI ID:21024215

Abbas, Sayeed; Lodge, Timothy P ^[1]

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1. Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Minnesota 55455 (United States)

Small angle neutron scattering was performed on disordered mixtures of nonadsorbing homopolymer (A) chains and diblock (A-B) copolymer micelles in an A selective solvent. Increasing the molecular weight or concentration of A led to an increase in the aggregation number, and a decrease in the effective hard-sphere diameter of the micelles. Furthermore an intermicellar attractive force developed, which was successfully modeled by the Asakura-Oosawa depletion potential. Via an alternative model we also extracted information about mesoscopic clusters of micelles formed due to this attractive force.

• OSTI ID: 21024215
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 99, Issue 13; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.137802; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
AGGLOMERATION
CONTROL
COPOLYMERS
INTERACTIONS
MOLECULAR WEIGHT
NEUTRON DIFFRACTION
SMALL ANGLE SCATTERING
SOLVENTS