In nature as well as in synthetic settings, the shape of a structure often directly determines its functions. Designing membranes with precise shapes and providing a simple control for modifying the shape when desired is crucial for various medical and technological applications. We show that Coulomb interactions can be used as a tool for designing and manipulating the shapes of closed elastic membranes at the nanoscale. The shape change in these nanoshells can be driven by tuning physiological conditions such as salt concentration or dielectric properties of the solvent. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate the minimal-energy conformations of uniformly charged, elastic shells subject to the constraint of fixed total volume for a wide range of electrostatic and elastic parameters. Our simulations reveal a variety of smooth and symmetric structures as ground states, which include spheres, ellipsoids, discs and bowls. We find that the transition from a high symmetry structure, such as the sphere, to shapes of lower symmetries, such as discs or bowls, is realized by decreasing salt concentration or lowering the permittivity of the solvent.

Electrostatics-driven shape transitions in charged elastic membranes

247th National Meeting (2014)

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