Figure 3. Silica NPs suppress domain coalescence, stabilizing a gel-like structure for the DPPC film and giving domains a regular, roughly circular shape.
(a–c) Epifluorescence images taken at 
for silica particles of size 60 nm. (d) The fraction of interface 
covered by the disks is reported as a function of surface pressure 
for silica particles of different radii; after a steep rise up to 
and 
more week dependence is found at higher pressures. a saturation value is reached for 
. The dashed line is a guide to the eye; error bars report standard deviation over several (
) images of different regions. (e) Mean radius R of the disks, measured as a function of 
for different values of the NP sizes. Error bars report standard deviations over several observations.