Mesoscale organization of nanoparticle assemblies: looking into superstructures and aggregates

For this thesis, the goal was to investigate:

1) the self-assembly of amine-terminated dendrimers into well-defined dendrimicelles

2) the use of the micelle embedded nanoparticles as ‘spy’ particles

3) the effect of a templating matrix on the self-organization of these dendrimicelles into mesoscale superstructures.

Throughout the thesis, it is shown that well-defined, 50 nm-sized dendrimicelles can be obtained from PAMAM dendrimer generations five through nine. By combining cryoTEM and light scattering experiments, the self-assembly behavior of the dendrimicelles is studied in unique detail. The dendrimicelle-embedded nanoparticles serve a dualistic purpose; not only do they provide additional contrast in the cryoTEM micrographs, they also allow for the direct determination of the micelle aggregation numbers by simply counting the number of nanoparticles.