Nonspecular neutron scattering from highly aligned phospholipid membranes

¹ Sektion Physik der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, D-80539 München, Germany
² Max-Planck Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung Kantstrasse 55, D-14513 Teltow-Seehof, Germany
³ Experimentalphysik (Festkörperphysik), Ruhr-Universität Bochum D-44780 Bochum, Germany

Received: 7 December 1998
Accepted: 4 March 1999

Abstract

We report a neutron scattering study of multilamellar membranes supported on solid substrates. In contrast to previous work, the high degree of orientational alignment allows for a clear distinction between specular and nonspecular reflectivity contributions. In particular, we demonstrate that by using the specific advantages of neutron optics the nonspecular scattering can be mapped over a wide range of reciprocal space. Several orders of magnitude in scattering signal and parallel momentum transfer can easily be recorded in multilamellar stacks of lipid membranes. This opens up the possibility to study fluctuations, and more generally lateral structure parameters of membrane on length scales between a few Å up to several . The first results obtained for a system of partially hydrated 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphatidylcholine (DMPC) indicate strong deviations from the predictions of the standard Caillé model.