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Shape characteristics of the aggregates formed by amphiphilic stars in water: dissipative particle dynamics study
- Source :
- Condens. Matter Phys., 2017, vol. 20, No. 1, 13802
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- We study the effect of the molecular architecture of amphiphilic star polymers on the shape of aggregates they form in water. Both solute and solvent are considered at a coarse-grained level by means of dissipative particle dynamics simulations. Four different molecular architectures are considered: the miktoarm star, two different diblock stars and a group of linear diblock copolymers, all of the same composition and molecular weight. Aggregation is started from a closely packed bunch of $N_{\text a}$ molecules immersed into water. In most cases, a single aggregate is observed as a result of equilibration, and its shape characteristics are studied depending on the aggregation number $N_{\text a}$. Four types of aggregate shape are observed: spherical, rod-like and disc-like micelle and a spherical vesicle. We estimate "phase boundaries" between these shapes depending on the molecular architecture. Sharp transitions between aspherical micelle and a vesicle are found in most cases. The pretransition region shows large amplitude oscillations of the shape characteristics with the oscillation frequency strongly dependent on the molecular architecture.<br />Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures
- Subjects :
- Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Journal :
- Condens. Matter Phys., 2017, vol. 20, No. 1, 13802
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.1703.10401
- Document Type :
- Working Paper
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.5488/CMP.20.13802