Construction of Energy Transfer Systems within Nanosized Polymer Micelles and their Fluorescence Modulation Properties

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Abstract
The nanoparticle‐based fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) systems have recently attracted considerable attention due to some of their advantages; however, these systems are structurally more complicated than that of small molecule systems, and the energy transfer behavior for particle systems has been seldom investigated. In this study, we synthesized a series of ABC triblock copolymers that contain hydrophilic poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), hydrophobic poly(styrene) (PS) and photochromic poly(2‐(3‐(3′,3′‐dimethyl‐6‐nitrospiro(indoline‐2′,2‐[2H‐1]benzopyran)‐1′‐yl)propanoylo‐xy)ethyl methacrylate) (PSPMA) blocks by using the sequential two‐step atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The amphiphilic micelles made from these copolymers can incorporate a hydrophobic fluorescent dye, the nitrobenzoxadiazolyl derivative (NBD), thus forming a water dispersible energy transfer system with the fluorescent dye NBD as the donor and spiropyran moieties as the potential acceptor. The spectral properties of NBD/triblock copolymers with varied PS block lengths and PSPMA block lengths have been investigated; the results indicate that the length of PS block in triblock copolymers can affect the energy transfer efficiency of the micelle‐based fluorescence modulation system, the micelles with moderate PS block length are preferable for forming FRET system with higher energy transfer efficiency, and short PSPMA blocks (less than 5 repetition units) are enough for efficient energy transfer.