2010/11/24 by Christoph A. Haselwandter, Rob Phillips · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior #Supramolecular Self-Assembly in Materials #Surfactants and Colloidal Systems #cond-mat.soft #q-bio.SC
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.105.228101
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 228101 (2010)
openalex publication_date 2010/11/24 · arxiv created 2011/06/10 · arxiv updated 2011/06/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Motivated by recent experiments on bilayer polyhedra composed of amphiphilic molecules, we study the elastic bending energies of bilayer vesicles forming polyhedral shapes. Allowing for segregation of excess amphiphiles along the ridges of polyhedra, we find that bilayer polyhedra can indeed have lower bending energies than spherical bilayer vesicles. However, our analysis also implies that, contrary to what has been suggested on the basis of experiments, the snub dodecahedron, rather than the icosahedron, generally represents the energetically favorable shape of bilayer polyhedra.