0000000000786071
AUTHOR
Andreas Fery
Splitting of Surface-Immobilized Multicompartment Micelles into Clusters upon Charge Inversion
International audience; We investigate a morphological transition of surface-immobilized triblock terpolymer micelles: the splitting into well-defined clusters of satellite micelles upon pH changes. The multicompartment micelles are formed in aqueous solution of ABC triblock terpolymers consisting of a hydrophobic polybutadiene block, a weak polyanionic poly(methacrylic acid) block, and a weak polycationic poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) block. They are subsequently immobilized on silicon wafer surfaces by dip-coating. The splitting process is triggered by a pH change to strongly basic pH, which goes along with a charge reversal of the micelles. We find that the aggregation number…
Core-Shell Microgels with Switchable Elasticity at Constant Interfacial Interaction.
Hydrogels based on poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAAm) exhibit a thermo-reversible volume phase transition from swollen to deswollen states. This change of the hydrogel volume is accompanied by changes of the hydrogel elastic and Young's moduli and of the hydrogel interfacial interactions. To decouple these parameters from one another, we present a class of submillimeter sized hydrogel particles that consist of a thermosensitive pNIPAAm core wrapped by a nonthermosensitive polyacrylamide (pAAm) shell, each templated by droplet-based microfluidics. When the microgel core deswells upon increase of the temperature to above 34 °C, the shell is stretched and dragged to follow this deswelling i…