Morphological and gel-to-liquid phase transitions of lipid membranes are generally considered to primarily depend on the structural motifs in the hydrophobic core of the bilayer. Structural changes in the aqueous headgroup phase are typically not considered, primarily because they are difficult to quantify. Here, we investigate structural changes of the hydration shells around large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs) in aqueous solution, using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and temperature-dependent ζ-potential and high-throughput angle-resolved second harmonic scattering measurements (AR-SHS).
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December 2019
Interfacial phase transitions are of fundamental importance for climate, industry, and biological processes. In this work, we observe a hydration mediated surface transition in supercooled oil nanodroplets in aqueous solutions using second harmonic and sum frequency scattering techniques. Hexadecane nanodroplets dispersed in water freeze at a temperature of ∼15 °C below the melting point of the bulk alkane liquid.
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