Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Stable and Robust Polymer Nanotubes Stretched From Polymersomes

Published

Author(s)

Joseph E. Reiner, J M. Wells, Rani B. Kishore, Candace Pfefferkorn, Kristian Helmerson

Abstract

We create long polymer nanotubes by directly pulling on the membrane of polymersomes using either optical tweezers or a micropipette. The polymersomes are composed of amphiphilic diblock copolymers and the nanotubes formed have an aqueous core. We stabilize the pulled nanotubes by subsequent chemical cross-linking. The cross-linked nanotubes are extremely robust and can be moved to another medium for use elsewhere. We demonstrate the ability to form networks of polymer nanotubes and polymersomes by optical manipulation.
Citation
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Keywords

amphiphilic, cross-linking, diblock copolymers, nanotubes, optical tweezers, polymersomes

Citation

Reiner, J. , Wells, J. , Kishore, R. , Pfefferkorn, C. and Helmerson, K. (2021), Stable and Robust Polymer Nanotubes Stretched From Polymersomes, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Accessed October 15, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created October 12, 2021