Nanoscopic structure of nanogels formed from self-associating polymers

Sekine, Yurina   ; Endo, Hitoshi*; Akiyoshi, Kazunari*

Nanogels, which have characteristic properties of both hydrogels and nanoparticles are attracting growing interest in the fields of material science and nanotechnology. Although the spatial distribution of cross-linking points in the nanogels would be highly related to their properties, no clear nanoscopic information has been obtained so far due to the complex structure with the multi components. The detailed internal structure of a nanogel formed by self-association of cholesterol-bearing pullulans (CHP) was investigated by contrast variation small-angle neutron scattering (CV-SANS), which enables us to determine quantitative complex structure at nanometer scale. In this presentation, I will discuss the detailed structure of the nanogels.