Regensburg 2004 – wissenschaftliches Programm
Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Downloads | Hilfe
AKB: Biologische Physik
AKB 50: Poster Session "Biological Physics"
AKB 50.90: Poster
Freitag, 12. März 2004, 10:30–13:00, B
Giant Hexagonal Superstructures in Diblock-Copolymer Membranes — •Wojciech Góźdź1, Christopher Haluska2, Hans-Günther Döbereiner2,3, Stephan Förster4, and Gerhard Gompper3 — 1Institute of Physical Chemistry, PAS, Warsaw — 2Max-Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung, Potsdam — 3Department of Biology, Columbia University, New York — 4Institut für Physikalische Chemie, Universität Hamburg
In aqueous solutions, amphiphilic diblock copolymers self-assemble
into bilayer membranes similar to phospholipid membranes. Such
membranes can form spherical vesicles called polymersomes in
analogy to liposomes, vesicles built from lipid molecules. We have
discovered a new type of polymersomes, characterized by a genus of the
order of one hundred. The genus describes the number of holes or
handles in a vesicle. We have studied the properties of the
high-genus polymersomes both experimentally and theoretically. We are
particularly interested in the structure of the polymersome walls,
which resemble locally a hexagonal network of passages. The structure
of the walls can be altered by applying thermodynamic stimuli, for
example temperature. A few types of ordered structures which form the
wall of polymersomes have been observed experimentally, such as
connected spheres, connected spindles, narrow and wide passages. The
transition between different structures is predicted and the phase
diagram is calculated [1]. The theoretical calculations are in good
agreement with the experiments.
1. C. Haluska et al. , Phys. Rev. Lett., 89(2002), 238302