Conformations of dendrimers in dilute solution

Conformations of isolated homo-dendrimers of G=1-7 generations with D=1-6 spacers have been studied in the good and poor solvents, as well as across the coil-to-globule transition, by means of a version of the Gaussian self-consistent method and Monte Carlo simulation in continuous space based on the same coarse-grained model. The latter includes harmonic springs between connected monomers and the pair-wise Lennard-Jones potential with a hard core repulsion. The scaling law for the dendrimer size, the degrees of bond stretching and steric congestion, as well as the radial density, static structure factor, and asphericity have been analyzed. It is also confirmed that while smaller dendrimers have a dense core, larger ones develop a hollow domain at some separation from the center. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.