Spontaneous assembly of miktoarm stars into vesicular interpolyelectrolyte complexes

Abstract

Mixing a bis-hydrophilic, cationic miktoarm star polymer with a linear polyanion leads to the formation of unilamellar polymersomes, which consist of an interpolyelectrolyte complex (IPEC) wall sandwiched between poly(ethylene oxide) brushes. The experimental finding of this rare IPEC morphology is rationalized theoretically: the star architecture forces the assembly into a vesicular shape due to the high entropic penalty for stretching of the insoluble arms in non-planar morphologies. The transmission electron microscopy of vitrified samples (cryogenic TEM) is compared with the samples at ambient conditions (in situ TEM), giving one of the first TEM reports on soft matter in its pristine environment.