A standard micelle was chosen as having 44 chains, 50 bonds per chain, and a core radius of 30Å. The Kuhn length b of the chains is 9Å, which results in 8.33 statistically independent segments per chain, and a reduced surface coverage as 0.72 (in analogy to c/c* of polymer solutions). The experimental range of diblock copolymers is a reduced surface coverage less than five.
The spheres illustrates the range of the hardcore excluded volume interactions. The radius (e) of the excluded volume hardspheres chosen as (e/b=0.1) inorder to mimic polystyrine in a good solvent.
Below three different micelle states are shown where a high surface coverage has been achived by increasing the number of chains, the length of chains, or by decreasing the core radius, while keeping the other two parameters fixed at their reference values. The entire micelle is shown, as well as the profile of micelle where the front half has been removed, as this makes it easiere to see the corona structure. The colors have no physical meaning except to identify individual chains. Click to enlarge micelle pictures.
Micelle with 327 chains (compared to the standard 44), corresponding to a reduced surface coverage of 5.25.
Micelle having 229 bonds (standard 50), corresponding to a reduced surface coverage of 2.34. (The camera has been moved back to accomodate the large corona)
Micelle with core radius 13.29Å (standard 30Å) corresponding to a reduced surface coverage of 2.10.
These renderings have been made using the "Persistance of Vision" Raytracer, and output from the simulator after the corona configuration has been equilibrated. The rendering program is freely available for download.