David A. Christian1, Aiwei Tian1, Tobias Baumgart2, and Dennis E. Discher1. (1) Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 220 South 33rd Street, Room 129 Towne Bldg., Philadelphia, PA 19104-6391, (2) Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Two amphiphilic diblock copolymers were mixed and found to form giant vesicles with laterally segregated domains. A-B and C-B diblocks with a similar hydrophobic core block B were blended in various proportions and generated polymersomes with micron-scale domains that could be seen via fluorescent A*-B diblock using confocal microscopy. With increasing proportion of A-B, the fluorescent domains grow in area fraction. Segregation appears to be driven by the fact that C-B can be crosslinked by added ligand, which promotes demixing of C-B and A-B to form laterally segregated domains. Studies of pure A-B and C-B vesicles substantiate these descriptions and, in the case of C-B vesicles, also demonstrate a solid-fluid transition based on ligand concentration and pH.
**Christian and Tian are equal contributors to this work.