Diffusion of a single colloid on the surface of a giant vesicle and a droplet

Abstract

The study of interactions between biomimetic membranes and micron-sized particles is crucial for understanding various biological processes. Here, we control microparticle spontaneous engulfment by giant lipid vesicles by tuning particle surface charge, exploring regimes from negligible to strong adhesion. We focus our attention on dissipative phenomena at the micron- and nano- scales, occurring when a particle is wrapped by a lipid vesicle bilayer or when the particle diffuses at the lipid-monolayer interface of a droplet. For particles wrapped by membrane bilayers, we highlight the influence of the particle penetration depth and the impact of substructures on particle friction. Our work is complemented by hydrodynamic simulations that take into account the effects of the shape of the membrane wrapping the particle and the water gap separating the lipid bilayer membrane from the particle on translational particle drag. We show, however, that a purely hydrodynamic model is not suitable to describe the friction of a particle diffusing at the interface of an aqueous microdroplet in oil, stabilized by a single lipid layer. In hydrodynamic models, dissipation is solely described by the surface shear viscosity of the interface and the bulk fluid viscosity, but in this partial wetting configuration, an additional source of dissipation is required to account for fluctuations at the contact line. Hence, through experimental and numerical studies, we demonstrate that the dissipation contributions for the two geometries are fundamentally different.