Phase Separation on Bicontinuous Cubic Membranes: Symmetry Breaking, Reentrant, and Domain Faceting

Paillusson, F.; Pennington, M.R.; Kusumaatmaja, H.

Abstract

WWe study the phase separation of binary lipid mixtures that form bicontinuous cubic phases. The competition between the nonuniform Gaussian membrane curvature and line tension leads to a very rich phase diagram, where we observe symmetry breaking of the membrane morphologies and reentrant phenomena due to the formation of bridges between segregated domains. Upon increasing the line tension contribution, we also find faceting of lipid domains that we explain using a simple argument based on the symmetry of the underlying surface and topology.

Citation

Paillusson, F., Pennington, M., & Kusumaatmaja, H. (2016). Phase Separation on Bicontinuous Cubic Membranes: Symmetry Breaking, Reentrant, and Domain Faceting. Physical Review Letters, 117(5), Article 058101. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.117.058101

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 27, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jul 26, 2016
• Publication Date: Jul 26, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jun 28, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 27, 2016
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Print ISSN: 0031-9007
• Electronic ISSN: 1079-7114
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 117
• Issue: 5
• Article Number: 058101
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.117.058101
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1380369
• Related Public URLs: http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.09112