A Monte Carlo study of model dendrimers

The structural properties of freely jointed bead-rod model dendrimers have been calculated with Monte Carlo methods. For dendrimers without excluded volume of the beads (ideal chain) the results are in agreement with analytical calculations, thus indicating that the configuration space has been sampled properly. We present results for the dependence of the average size and shape on the spacer length, the number of generations and the diameter of the beads. The internal structure of the dendrimer is characterized through the position-dependent Helmholtz free energy of a test particle inside the molecule. We found that for certain combinations of parameters, the dendrimer has internal voids. Implications of this result for practical applications are discussed.