Faculty of Science (FNWI) - Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS)
Abstract
We investigate the intermolecular interactions in a mixed phospholipid/cholesterol monolayer using the surfacespecific technique of vibrational sum frequency generation. This technique allows us to monitor the conformational and orientational order in the phospholipid as the surface pressure and cholesterol content are varied. We find a disproportionally large increase in phospholipid molecular order upon addition of relatively small amounts of cholesterol, a witness to the condensation effect at the molecular level.