Electric polarizability of lipid bilayers: The influence of the structure

We have calculated the electric polarizability of two types of lipid bilayers, formed by 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) and 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) lipids. We demonstrate that despite the very similar chemical structures, the bilayers exhibit dramatically different terahertz infrared (IR) properties. We demonstrate that the chemical structure of the lipids influences the morphology of the bilayers, which in turn impacts their IR responses: interestingly, both structures exhibit a non-uniform absorption. For the case of DPPC, the infrared absorption is mostly driven by the hydrophilic heads, whereas for the POPC lipids, the absorption occurs predominately at the hydrophobic tails. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.