  Polymer vesicles are stable robust vesicles made from block copolymer
amphiphiles. Recent progress in the chemical design of block copolymers opens
up the exciting possibility of creating a wide variety of polymer vesicles with
varying fine structure, functionality and geometry. Polymer vesicles not only
constitute useful systems for drug delivery and micro/nano-reactors but also
provide an invaluable arena for exploring the ordering of matter on curved
surfaces embedded in three dimensions. By choosing suitable liquid-crystalline
polymers for one of the copolymer components one can create vesicles with
smectic stripes. Smectic order on shapes of spherical topology inevitably
possesses topological defects (disclinations) that are themselves distinguished
regions for potential chemical functionalization and nucleators of vesicle
budding. Here we report on glassy striped polymer vesicles formed from
amphiphilic block copolymers in which the hydrophobic block is a smectic liquid
crystal polymer containing cholesteryl-based mesogens. The vesicles exhibit
two-dimensional smectic order and are ellipsoidal in shape with defects, or
possible additional budding into isotropic vesicles, at the poles.
