Abstract
We use standing surface acoustic waves to induce coherent phonons in model lipid multilayers deposited on a piezoelectric surface. Probing the structure by phase-controlled stroboscopic x-ray pulses we find that the internal lipid bilayer electron density profile oscillates in response to the externally driven motion of the lipid film. The structural response to the well-controlled motion is a strong indication that bilayer structure and membrane fluctuations are intrinsically coupled, even though these structural changes are averaged out in equilibrium and time integrating measurements. Here the effects are revealed by a timing scheme with temporal resolution on the picosecond scale in combination with the sub-nm spatial resolution, enabled by high brilliance synchrotron x-ray reflectivity.
Highlights
We use standing surface acoustic waves to induce coherent phonons in model lipid multilayers deposited on a piezoelectric surface
Probing the structure by phase-controlled stroboscopic x-ray pulses we find that the internal lipid bilayer electron density profile oscillates in response to the externally driven motion of the lipid film
surface acoustic waves (SAWs) have previously been shown to induce phase segregation in multicomponent lipid bilayers as probed by fluorescence microscopy [8,9], and to some extent the electroacoustic fields can mimick the effects of external forces which act on biomolecular assemblies or membranes in a biological environment
Summary
We use standing surface acoustic waves to induce coherent phonons in model lipid multilayers deposited on a piezoelectric surface. We use time resolved x-ray diffraction to study outof-equilibrium structural dynamics of lipid membranes, using surface acoustic waves (SAWs) for well controlled
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