The influence of charge and flexibility on smectic phase formation in filamentous virus suspensions

Abstract

We present experimental measurements of the cholesteric-smectic phase transition of suspensions of charged semiflexible rods as a function of rod flexibility and surface charge. The rod particles consist of the bacteriophage M13 and closely related mutants, which are structurally identical to this virus, but vary either in contour length and therefore ratio of persistence length to contour length, or vary in surface charge. Surface charge is altered in two ways; by changing solution pH and by comparing M13 with {\it fd} virus, a mutant which differs from M13 only by the substitution of a single charged amino acid for a neutral one per viral coat protein. Phase diagrams are measured as a function of particle length, particle charge and ionic strength. The experimental results are compared with existing theoretical predictions for the phase behavior of flexible rods and charged rods. In contrast to the isotropic-cholesteric transition, where theory and experiment agree at high ionic strength, the nematic-smectic transition exhibits complex charge and ionic strength dependence significantly different from predicted phase behavior. Possible explanations for these unexpected results are discussed.