Touve Mollie A, Figg C Adrian, Wright Daniel B, Park Chiwoo, Cantlon Joshua, Sumerlin Brent S, Gianneschi Nathan C
Department of Chemistry, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Department of NanoEngineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
ACS Cent Sci. 2018 May 23;4(5):543-547. doi: 10.1021/acscentsci.8b00148. Epub 2018 Apr 25.
In this paper, we describe the use of liquid cell transmission electron microscopy (LCTEM) for inducing and imaging the formation of spherical micelles from amphiphilic block copolymers. Within the irradiated region of the liquid cell, diblock copolymers were produced which self-assembled, yielding a targeted spherical micellar phase via polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA). Critically, we demonstrate that nanoparticle formation can be visualized in situ and that in the presence of excess monomer, nanoparticle growth occurs to yield sizes and morphologies consistent with standard PISA conditions. Experiments were enabled by employing automated LCTEM sample preparation and by analyzing LCTEM data with multi-object tracking algorithms designed for the detection of low-contrast materials.
在本文中，我们描述了使用液体池透射电子显微镜（LCTEM）诱导两亲性嵌段共聚物形成球形胶束并对其进行成像。在液体池的辐照区域内，生成了二嵌段共聚物，这些共聚物通过聚合诱导自组装（PISA）进行自组装，产生了目标球形胶束相。至关重要的是，我们证明了纳米颗粒的形成可以原位可视化，并且在存在过量单体的情况下，纳米颗粒会生长，从而产生与标准PISA条件一致的尺寸和形态。通过采用自动化的LCTEM样品制备方法，并使用专为检测低对比度材料设计的多目标跟踪算法分析LCTEM数据，使得这些实验得以进行。
