Self-assembled systems, solvent relaxation

Solvent Relaxation Study of Self-Assembled Systems. 214... 

The second example concerns the multidisciplinary study of the micelliz-ing block copolymer polystyrene-( -poly(2-vinylpyridine)-ft-poly(ethylene oxide) (PS-PVP-PEO), which shows a high tendency to aggregation and the formation of micellar clusters [88,89]. It shows the application of SRM for studying the mobility and structural details of different domains in micelle-like polymeric nanoparticles. The fluorescence technique reveals interesting features of studied systems that are hardly accessible by other techniques. Section 3.3 is devoted to the development of the methodology of the solvent relaxation technique for studying nanostructured self-assembling systems. 

Monitoring of the half-width of the emission band provides information about whether the entire process, or just a part of it, was included within the time window of the experiment. If only a decrease is observed, the early part of the relaxation process is beyond the time resolution of the relevant apparatus. In contrast, if only the rising part is observed, the process is slow and the fluorescence lifetime is too short and does not allow monitoring of the entire relaxation process. The following chapters give some examples of studies of self-assembling polymer systems by the solvent relaxation method. 

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