Fig. 1.

Snapshots of minimum-energy conformations of charged elastic nanoshells for three different bending rigidities κ = 1, 5, and 10 (columns from left to right). In each column the electrolyte concentration c (M) decreases (rows from top to bottom) as c = 1, 0.1, 0.05, and 0.005. Different colors suggest different concentration values, with red being the highest c under study and purple corresponding to the lowest c. As the concentration is lowered, the range of electrostatic interactions is increased, leading to the variation in the shape of the nanoshell. We find that for the concentration range under investigation, softer shells tend to form bowl-like structures, wheras more rigid vesicles form ellipsoidal and disc-like shapes. All of the above nanostructures have the same total surface charge and volume, fixed to values associated with the spherical conformation.