Abstract
Curvature-induced domain sorting, a strategy exploited by cells to organize membrane components, is a promising mechanism to control self-assembly of materials. To understand this phenomenon, this work explores the effects of curvature on component rearrangement in thin polymer films and lipid bilayers supported on sinusoidal substrates. Specifically, self-consistent field theory (SCFT) was used to study the spatial distribution of polymers in blends containing conformationally asymmetric chains. In addition, coarse-grained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were used to probe the arrangement of rigid lipid domains in a relatively soft lipid matrix. Besides the expected preference of rigid species localizing in regions with low mean curvature, both systems exhibit unexpected localization of rigid components in comparatively high curvature regions. The origins of this unexpected sorting are discussed in terms of entropic and enthalpic contributions. In summary, this study demonstrates that domain distribution strongly depends on local topography and further highlights the collective effects that thermodynamic forces have on the morphological behavior of membranes.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 6642-6649 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Soft Matter |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 33 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2019 |
Funding
This research was performed at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a US Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. J. K. is supported through the Scientific User Facilities Division of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, sponsored by the Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Program, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.