Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Switchable Positioning Of Plate-Like Inclusions In Lipid Membranes: Elastically Mediated Interactions Of Planar Colloids In 2d Fluids, Hao Wu, Weiyue Xin, Gregory M. Grason, Maria M. Santore

Polymer Science and Engineering Department Faculty Publication Series

We demonstrate how manipulating curvature in an elastic fluid lamella enables the reversible relative positioning of flat, rigid, plate-like micrometer-scale inclusions, with spacings from about a micrometer to tens of micrometers. In an experimental model comprising giant unilamellar vesicles containing solid domain pairs coexisting in a fluid membrane, we adjusted vesicle inflation to manipulate membrane curvature and mapped the inter-domain separation. A two-dimensional model of the pair potential predicts the salient experimental observations and reveals both attractions and repulsions, producing a potential minimum entirely a result of the solid domain rigidity and bending energy in the fluid membrane. The impact …