Abstract:
In this paper we report our recent investigations on the morphological
evolution of fractal-like domains of the liquid-condensed (LC) phase in
lipid
monolayers. It is demonstrated that the dimension of the Ld domains
increases upon continuous illumination of microscope light. The experimental
data
indicate that the increasing rate of fractal dimension of the LC domains
depends on the concentration of fluorescence probes. By analyzing the domain
growth process we find that the self-similarity of the pattern disappears
gradually during its growth. The possible mechanism behind the observed
phenomena is discussed.