Structure of a collapsed polymer chain with stickers: a single- or multiflower?
Using an amphiphilic copolymer with evenly spaced hydrophobic styrene segments (stickers), poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-s-styrene), we recently confirmed a long-standing prediction that such a copolymer chain in a solvent selectively poor for the stickers could self-fold from a random coil to a single-flowerlike core-shell nanostructure. Moreover, we found that the self-folding involves the movement of the sticks to the center and the transition from the random coil to the collapsed globule passes through a proposed ordered coil state.
Zhang
Guangzhao
G
The Open Laboratory of Bond Selective Chemistry, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Winnik
Françoise M
FM
Wu
Chi
C