Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 4, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2911
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Funding
- Electron Microscopy of ETH Zurich (EMEZ)
- ETH Zurich [ETHIIRA TH 32-1]
- SNSF Ambizione Fellowship [PZ00P2_142532/1]
- SNF [2-77002-11]
- [MC-IEF-2009-252926]
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) [PZ00P2_142532] Funding Source: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
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Two-dimensional alignment of shape-anisotropic colloids is ubiquitous in nature, ranging from interfacial virus assembly to amyloid plaque formation. The principles governing two-dimensional self-assembly have therefore long been studied, both theoretically and experimentally, leading, however, to diverging fundamental interpretations on the nature of the two-dimensional isotropic-nematic phase transition. Here we employ single-molecule atomic force microscopy, cryogenic scanning electron microscopy and passive probe particle tracking to study the adsorption and liquid crystalline ordering of semiflexible beta-lactoglobulin fibrils at liquid interfaces. Fibrillar rigidity changes on increasing interfacial density, with a maximum caused by alignment and a subsequent decrease stemming from crowding and domain bending. Coexistence of nematic and isotropic regions is resolved and quantified by a length scale-dependent order parameter S-2D(d). The nematic surface fraction increases with interfacial fibril density, but depends, for a fixed interfacial density, on the initial bulk concentration, ascribing the observed two-dimensional isotropic-nematic coexistence to non-equilibrium phenomena.
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