Emergence of a thread-like pattern with charged phospholipids on an oil/water interface.
The spontaneous formation of a thread-like pattern with negatively charged lipids on an oil/water interface is reported. An analysis of the time-dependent change at the interface observed by fluorescence microscopy revealed that the thread-like pattern is generated through a two-step mechanism. First, inverted lipid micelles in the bulk-oil phase gradually diffuse onto the oil/water interface. Next, the micelles are adsorbed on the interface and self-assemble to form the thread-like pattern. The essential characteristics of this pattern formation are theoretically reproduced by a simple Monte Carlo simulation that takes into account the kinetics in the coalescence of charged micelles on a 2D interface.
Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, 606-8501 Kyoto, Japan.
Hiroaki
H
Ito
Miho
M
Yanagisawa
Masatoshi
M
Ichikawa
Kenichi
K
Yoshikawa