Laterally nanostructured vesicles, polygonal bilayer sheets, and segmented wormlike micelles

We report the formation of vesicles with a laterally nanostructured membrane by self-assembly of miktoarm star terpolymers, that is, macromolecules with three chemically distinct arms. The lateral structure consists of approximately hexagonally packed fluorocarbon channels with 4.1 nm radii, immersed in a continuous, two-dimensional hydrocarbon bilayer. We also show that the assembly of these vesicles proceeds via metastable polygonal, faceted bilayer sheets.