The Shape of Structured Polymer Vesicles

Polymer vesicles are stable robust vesicles made from block copolymer amphiphiles. Recent progress in the chemical design of block copolymers has lead to the creation of a variety of polymer vesicles with varying internal structure, functionality and shape. By choosing suitable liquid-crystalline polymers for one of the copolymer components one can create vesicles with internal nematic or smectic order. This talk will address the possible shapes of these \textit{structured }vesicles as well as their inherent topological defects.