Fig. 1.

Simulation snapshots of swollen microgel particles. (Top) Microgels that have a uniform cross-link distribution, and (Bottom) microgels that have a Gaussian cross-link distribution. (Left) Schematic illustrations of how the cross-link density changes with the distance from the microgel center. (Right) Microgels I and II are shown in A and B, respectively, and have, on average, fewer dangling chains than microgels III and IV shown in C and D, respectively. Microgels I, II, and IV have approximately the same number of monomers, whereas microgel III has ∼40% more monomers.