Theory of Linear-Dendritic Block Copolymer Micelles.
Résumé
A SCF theory is applied to study structural properties of micelles formed upon spontaneous assembly of diblock copolymers comprising sol. dendron block covalently linked to insol. linear block in selective solvent. The structure of spherical micelles is analyzed as a function of ds.p. of the blocks and no. of generations and branching functionality of the dendron block. We demonstrate that for a given mol. mass of blocks both the hydrodynamic dimensions of the micelles and the aggregation no. decrease as a function of the degree of branching of the dendron block. However, the no. of potentially functionalizable terminal segments of dendrons in the corona exposed to the soln. increases compared to the no. of terminal groups in the corona of linear diblock copolymer micelle. This result may have important implications for construction of linear-dendritic block copolymer micelles with smart functionalities for targeted drug and gene delivery.