Structural Tunability of Multicompartment Micelles as a Function of Lipophilic-Fluorophilic Block Length Ratio

Structural variation in multicompartment micelles consisting of lipophilic-hydrophilic-fluorophilic (hereafter referred to as BAC) triblock copolymers is investigated using the dissipative particle dynamics simulation method. It is demonstrated from our results that the structure of BAC multicompartment micelles is effectively tuned as a function of the lipophilic-fluorophilic ratio parameter, here termed R-l, of the constituent linear triblock copolymers. In particular, a morphological deviation from onion-like ABC micelles arises in BAC micelle systems as R-l increases. The morphologies of BAC micelles with R-l << 1 or R-l >> 1 display striking similarities, with the only notable difference being an inversion of the lipophilic and fluorophilic regions. When R-l approximate to 1, segmented worm-like structures with multiple cores are favored in BAC micelle systems. Through this study, it is confirmed that the block length ratio is an effective control parameter to tune the structure of multicompartment micelles.