We present a scaling theory describing equilibrium properties of starlike micelles formed by a diblock copolymer with bottlebrush (bb) blocks in solutions. In dilute and semidilute solutions, the blocks are envisioned as linear chains of impermeable superblobs with sizes D_A and D_B. Depending on the ratio of block “thicknesses”, D_A/D_B, micelles can exhibit different power law dependences on solution concentration. We demonstrate that bb branching of blocks increases the number of different regimes in the diagram of states compared with diblock copolymers with linear blocks. In particular, in concentrated solution, thickness D_A of soluble block A decreases and micelles rearrange similarly to spherical domains in melts of diblock copolymer with the concentration-dependent size of the monomer unit in the corona block. In both the semidilute and concentrated solutions, starlike micelles remain essentially impermeable and exhibit quasi-globular regimes. The theoretical predictions are contrasted to experiments.

中文翻译：

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二嵌段共聚物胶束与 Bottlebrush 块的解决方案。扩展模型


我们提出了一种缩放理论，描述了由二嵌段共聚物与瓶刷 （bb） 嵌段在溶液中形成的星状胶束的平衡特性。在稀溶液和半稀溶液中，块被设想为大小为 D_A 和 D_B 的不透水超级水滴的线性链。根据嵌段“厚度”的比率，D_A/D_B，胶束可以表现出对溶液浓度的不同幂律依赖性。我们证明，与具有线性嵌段的二嵌段共聚物相比，嵌段的 bb 分支增加了状态图中不同状态的数量。特别是，在浓溶液中，可溶性嵌段 A 的厚度 D_A 减小，胶束重新排列类似于二嵌段共聚物熔体中的球形畴，电晕嵌段中单体单元的尺寸与浓度有关。在半稀溶液和浓溶液中，星状胶束基本上保持不透水并表现出准球状状态。理论预测与实验形成对比。