engleski

Carbon sp2 shapes, viruses and theory of elasticity

I shall present a particularly efficient application of the elasticity theory [1] to energetics and geometry of carbon shapes and viruses. It shall be shown that a deep insight in these objects can be acquired by studying the pentagonal disclinations in otherwise planar, hexagonally coordinated crystalline membrane. It has been demonstrated [2] that a single pentagonal disclination leads to buckling of the surrounding membrane in a conical shape whose energy scales as a logarithm of the membrane radius. This can be profitably applied to viral [3] and carbon sp2 shapes [4] since both classes of shapes are characterized by a pentagonal disclination in otherwise hexagonal crystalline lattice (pentagonal carbon ring in (generalized) fullerenes vs. pentameric capsomer in viral protein coatings [5], see Fig. 1). 1. Landau LD, Lifshitz EM (2002) Theory of Elasticity, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. 2. Seung S, Nelson DR (1998) Phys. Rev. A 38, 1005. 3. Šiber A (2006) Phys. Rev. E, submitted. 4. Šiber A (2006) Nanotechnology, submitted. 5. Caspar DLD, Klug A (1962) Cold Spring Harbor Symp. 27, 1.

Fullerenes; Viruses; Elasticity; Disclination

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