Theory of Linear-Dendritic Block Copolymer Micelles

A self-consistent field theory is applied to study structural properties of micelles formed upon spontaneous assembly of diblock copolymers comprising soluble dendron block covalently linked to insoluble linear block in selective solvent. The structure of spherical micelles is analyzed as a function of degrees of polymerization of the blocks and number of generations and branching functionality of the dendron block. We demonstrate that for a given molecular mass of blocks both the hydrodynamic dimensions of the micelles and the aggregation number decrease as a function of the degree of branching of the dendron block. However, the number of potentially functionalizable terminal segments of dendrons in the corona exposed to the solution increases compared to the number of terminal groups in the corona of linear diblock copolymer micelle. This result may have important implications for construction of linear-dendritic block copolymer micelles with smart functionalities for targeted drug and gene delivery.