Diverse technologies critically rely on the ability to precisely print or arrange micron and submicron scale objects/features on surfaces. The most sophisticated of these demand that the arrangements reconfigure in response to stimuli or that the surface of the substrates bend and change shape. Interestingly, the surfaces of biological cells accomplish these behaviors as part of their innate character. The membranes of cells are nanometrically thin fluid sheets that bend and shear, albeit with some expended energy. While cell surfaces and biomimetic constructs such as vesicles resemble other interfaces such as supported layers, lipid Langmuir monolayers, and oil/water and water/air interfaces, the differences in these systems produces different interactions between colloidal scale objects. The result is that for cells and bilayers such as vesicles, interactions between rigid inclusions and rigid surface objects can be both attractive and repulsive at the same time, facilitating precise positioning of objects on length scales far below a micron out to tens of microns. By contrast, other systems such as those containing fluid inclusions tend to produce interactions that are entirely repulsive or attractive, or which are entirely different because the interface originates from the bulk phase itself and is not a unique material. This talk elaborates on these distinctions and illustrates a range of domain placements and arrangements that can result.

How the unique features of biomembrane interfaces enable precise positioning of inclusions colloidal scale objects

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.