Synthesis of an Amphiphilic Miktoarm Star Terpolymer for Self-Assembly into Patchy Polymersomes

Herein we report the synthesis of an amphiphilic miktoarm star terpolymer and combine it with an equivalent diblock copolymer to form polymersomes with controlled surface topology. The three branches are ligated onto a central maleimide moiety in a reaction sequence that exploits various “click” chemistries. The final star was self-assembled with a linear block copolymer to generate a “patchy” surface on vesicles.