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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Atomic Force Microscopy Imaging and Force Spectroscopy of Supported Lipid Bilayers
Published on: July 22, 2015
Power-law fluctuations in phase-separated lipid membranes
1Department of Chemistry, Physical Chemistry I, University of Dortmund, Otto-Hahn-Strasse 6, D-44221 Dortmund, Germany.
Abstract:
The spatial structure of three binary lipid mixtures, prepared as multilamellar vesicles, was studied by small-angle neutron scattering. In the fluid-gel coexistence region, large-scale concentration fluctuations appear which scatter like surface fractals for small acyl-chain mismatch and like mass fractals for large mismatch over about one decade of length. The transition is highly discontinuous: The fractal dimension of the boundary between the gel and fluid drops from 2.7 to 1.7, the gel fraction in the fluctuations drops from about 0.5 to 0.07, and the gel domains interlamellar correlation drops from strong to weak. We interpret the fluctuations as long-lived descendants of the incipient two-phase equilibrium state and the transition as due to changes in the gel rigidity and phase diagram.
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