Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 1, 2026
Atomic Force Microscopy Imaging and Force Spectroscopy of Supported Lipid Bilayers
Published on: July 22, 2015
Visualization and measurement of the local absorption coefficients of single bilayer phospholipid membranes using
Arif M Siddiquee1,2, Imad Younus Hasan1, Shibiao Wei1,3
1Department of Chemistry and Physics, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS), La Trobe University, Victoria 3086, Australia.
Abstract:
Here we report the results of shear-mode thicknesses and absorption coefficient measurements made on neat membranes using scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM). Biomimic neat membranes composed of two different types of phoshpholipid molecules: 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) and 1,2- dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) were found to exhibit different absorption coefficients under the SNOM. The localization of the lipids could be identified and correlated to the morphology of the membrane domains indicating that SNOM can be an effective and accurate approach for the label-free characterization of the structure-function relationships in cell membranes.
