Kavli Affiliate: Gerald W. Feigenson | Summary:We have developed a new model to describe FRET efficiency (E FRET) between freely-diffusing membrane probes in phase-separated bilayers (Finite Phase-separation FRET, or FP-FRET), that in principle applies to any system where phase domain dimensions are larger than ~Ro . Here we use Monte Carlo techniques to simulate E […]
Kavli Affiliate: Gerald W. Feigenson | Summary:Multicomponent lipid mixtures exhibit complex phase behavior, including coexistence of nanoscopic fluid phases in ternary mixtures mimicking the composition of the outer leaflet of mammalian plasma membrane. The physical mechanisms responsible for the small size of phase domains are unknown, due in part to the difficulty of determining the […]
Kavli Affiliate: Gerald W. Feigenson | Summary:The presence and the properties of lipid bilayer nanometer-scale domains might be important for understanding the membranes of living cells. We used molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate perturbations of a small patch of fluid-phase DPPC bilayer upon incorporation of fluorescent indocarbocyanine lipid probes commonly used to study membranes […]
Kavli Affiliate: Roel H. M. Smit | Summary:Pt is known to show spontaneous formation of chains of metal atoms upon breaking a metallic contact. From model calculations these have been predicted to be spin polarized, which is reasonable in view of the Stoner enhanced susceptibility of bulk Pt and the increased density of states due […]
Kavli Affiliate: Thomas Rosenbaum | Summary:We review quantum phase transitions of spin systems in transverse magnetic fields taking the examples of the spin-1/2 Ising and XY models in a transverse field. Beginning with an overview of quantum phase transitions, we introduce a number of model Hamiltonians. We provide exact solutions in one spatial dimension connecting […]
Kavli Affiliate: Kobus Kuipers | Summary:The field of plasmonics offers a route to control light fields with metallic nanostructures through the excitation of Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs). These surface waves, bound to a metal dielectric interface, tightly confine electromagnetic energy. Active control over SPPs has potential for applications in sensing, photovoltaics, quantum communication, nano circuitry, […]
Kavli Affiliate: Joseph M. Thijssen | Summary:Many types of molecular motors have been proposed and synthesized in recent years, displaying different kinds of motion, and fueled by different driving forces such as light, heat, or chemical reactions. We propose a new type of molecular motor based on electric field actuation and electric current detection of […]
Kavli Affiliate: Joseph M. Thijssen | Summary:We present a method which uses density functional theory (DFT) to treat transport through a single molecule connected to two conducting leads for the weak and intermediate coupling. This case is not accessible to standard non-equilibrium Green’s function (NEGF) calculations. Our method is based on a mapping of the […]
Kavli Affiliate: Martin Depken | Summary:Cytoskeletal networks of biopolymers are cross-linked by a variety of proteins. Experiments have shown that dynamic cross-linking with physiological linker proteins leads to complex stress relaxation and enables network flow at long times. We present a model for the mechanical properties of transient networks. By a combination of simulations and […]
Kavli Affiliate: Richard Berry | Summary:We report new statistical time-series analysis tools providing significant improvements in the rapid, precision extraction of discrete state dynamics from large databases of experimental observations of molecular machines. By building physical knowledge and statistical innovations into analysis tools, we demonstrate new techniques for recovering discrete state transitions buried in highly […]