A Supramolecular Janus Hyperbranched Polymer and Its Photoresponsive Self-Assembly of Vesicles with Narrow Size Distribution
writer：Yong Liu^, Chunyang Yu^, Haibao Jin, Xinyuan Zhu, Yongfeng Zhou*, Zhongyuan Lu*
keywords：Janus Hyperbranched Polymer, Self-assembly
source：期刊
specific source：J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, 4765-4770.
Issue time：2013年
Herein, we report a novel Janus particle and supramolecular block copolymer consisting of two chemically distinct hyperbranched polymers, which is coined as Janus hyperbranched polymer. It is constructed by the noncovalent coupling between a hydrophobic hyperbranched poly(3-ethyl-3-oxetanemethanol) with an apex of an azobenzene (AZO)
group and a hydrophilic hyperbranched polyglycerol with an apex of a β-cyclodextrin (CD) group through the specific AZO/CD host?guest interactions. Such an amphiphilic supramolecular polymer resembles a tree together with its root very well in the architecture and can further self-assemble into unilamellar bilayer vesicles with narrow size distribution, which disassembles reversibly under the irradiation of UV light due to the trans-to-cis isomerization of the AZO groups. In addition, the obtained vesicles could further aggregate into colloidal crystal-like close-packed arrays under freeze-drying conditions. The dynamics and mechanism for the self-assembly of vesicles as well as the bilayer structure have been disclosed by a dissipative particle dynamics simulation.