Figure 4.

(a) Kinetics of pore annihilation for three different pore sizes. Shown are three independent simulations indicated with different colors (red, blue, and cyan) for each pore size, corresponding to each sustaining field (E_S1, E_S2, and E_S3), are shown. Error bars indicate standard deviation of radius (Supporting Materials and Methods). (b) Shown is a snapshot of a typical lipid electropore just before final collapse of the membrane-spanning water column (red and white: water O and H; gold and silver: P and N of lipid headgroups; lipid tails hidden for clarity). The pore is shown 9.5 ns after removal of E_S1 = 40 MV/m sustaining field, 0.5 ns before complete closure (simulation plotted in red in (a), top plot). (c) Shown is a scatter plot showing a lack of correlation between the initial pore radius (mean of the first 1 ns after the electric field removal) and the pore closure time. To see this figure in color, go online.