Nucleation of pores in amphiphile bilayers

A simple model which shows both the value and the limitations of classical nucleation theory as a description for pore formation in membranes was employed. On the one hand, the free energies of larger pores can be fit to classical nucleation theory (CNT) expressions, giving explicit predictions from density functional theory for the surface tensions and line tensions in terms of the interaction parameters in the theory. On the other hand, for sufficiently small pores, the macroscopic approximations implicit in CNT break down because of rearrangement on the molecular scale.