Flowering of Developable 2D Crystal Shapes in Closed, Fluid Membranes

Abstract

The morphologies of two-dimensional (2D) crystals, nucleated, grown, and integrated within 2D elastic fluids, for instance in giant vesicle membranes, are dictated by an interplay of mechanics, permeability, and thermal contraction. Mitigation of solid strain drives formation of crystals with developable shapes (e.g. planar or cylindrical) that expel Gaussian curvature into the 2D fluid. However, upon cooling to grow the crystals, large vesicles sustain greater inflation and tension because their small area to volume ratio slows water permeation. As a result, more elaborate shapes, for instance flowers with bendable but inextensible petals form on large vesicles despite their more gradual curvature, while small vesicles harbor compact planar crystals. This size dependence runs counter to the known cumulative growth of strain energy of 2D colloidal crystals on rigid spherical templates. This interplay of intra-membrane mechanics and processing points to the scalable production of flexible molecular crystals of controllable complex shape.