Abstract
Solid-supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) are model systems used to study a number of aspects of biological membranes such as the structural organization of lipids in localization of lipid-anchored molecules for cell signaling, and interaction forces in biological membranes to name a few. One of the most common techniques to obtain SLBs is via the spin-coating technique where a lipid dispersed in volatile organic solvent is spin-coated on a substrate. The dried film though of uniform thickness is riddled with holes whose origins remain unclear. To gain a better understanding of the hole formation process, we spin-coated lipid films of four different lipids dispersed in ethanol and chloroform on glass substrates and investigated the role of the nature of lipid, solvent, and film thickness on the characteristic length scale of the holes and the number density of the holes. For a fixed solvent and rotation rate, the average size of the hole increased with dry film thickness while the number density decreased with the film thickness. However, the measured hole sizes are about an order of magnitude lower than that predicted by the spinodal dewetting theory. The length scale of the holes was greater in the case of ethanol compared to chloroform though the predicted trends are opposite. Our results indicate that despite the discrepancy, the spinodal dewetting process plays a role in the hole formation.
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Sundar, S.K., Tirumkudulu, M.S. (2015). Dewetting and Hole Formation in Spin-Coated Films of Lipid Bilayers. In: Joshi, Y., Khandekar, S. (eds) Nanoscale and Microscale Phenomena. Springer Tracts in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2289-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2289-7_6
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