Dresden 2020 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 4: Membranes and Vesicles (joint session BP/CPP)
BP 4.11: Talk
Monday, March 16, 2020, 12:45–13:00, ZEU 250
Conformal wrapping of nanoparticles — •Piermarco Fonda1,2 and Luca Giomi1 — 1Lorentz Instituut, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands — 2Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany
It is well-known that wrapping of nanometer-sized particles by lipid membranes can happen spontaneously for sufficient adhesion energy between the particle surface and lipid molecules. In this work we show the surprising result that, even in absence of adhesion forces, there exist solutions to the shape equation that describe a stable, spontaneous wrapping of spherical particles. Mathematically, these solutions can be found analytically thanks to the scale invariant nature of the bending energy, which allows to reduce the problem to the one of finding minimal surfaces in hyperbolic and spherical spaces. From a physical standpoint, such shapes are well-behaved since, unlike for adhesive forces, they do not require any in-plane stress at the contact points, and hence they easily preserve the liquid nature of the membrane. Finally, the relevance of these solutions to experimental and biological systems will be discussed.