Micelle and Vesicle Formation of Amphiphilic Nanoparticles

摘要

Amphiphilic molecules such as surfactants or lipids spontaneously self-assemble into micelles or vesicles. This self-assembly principle has been shown to be generally applicable to organic molecules, as it can also be used with amphiphilic polymers, dendrimers, and fullerenes. Amphiphilicity as a self-assembling principle can, in theory, be also applied to inorganic particles to provide a new and simple route for a controlled self-assembly of such particles into one-, two-, and three-dimensional structures. In the particular case of inorganic nanoparticles, controlled self-assembly in solution has so far been possible only by the attachment of template molecules such as DNA, proteins, or specific polymers.