Temperature Dependent SANS Studies of Thermoresponsive Diblock Copolymer Nanoparticles

We have recently developed a new class of thermoresponsive amphiphilic diblock copolymers that can switch reversibly between four copolymer morphologies in aqueous solution. Which enables the viscoelastic properties of the material to be controlled within a narrow temperature range that is relevant for potential biomedical applications. We now wish to conduct a series of temperature dependent SANS studies to quantitatively characterise the evolution in copolymer morphology from spheres to worms to vesicles to lamellae that occurs between 1°C and 50°C as a function of the relative degree of hydration of the hydrophobic structure-directing block.