Effect of Polydispersity on the Formation of Vesicles from Amphiphilic Diblock Copolymers

Using a continuous chain length distribution, the effect of polydispersity on the structures of vesicles self-assembled by amphiphilic polydisperse diblock copolymers in dilute solutions is investigated by two-dimensional (2D) real-space self-consistent-field theory. It is discovered that larger polydispersity favors the formation of smaller vesicles or quasi-vesicles. This polydispersity effect can be attributed to the segregation of …