Dynamic behaviors of fractal-like domains in monolayers

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 LC 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.