Low-frequency Spectra of a Phospholipid Bilayer Studied by Terahertz Time-domain Spectroscopy

We have investigated the low-frequency spectra of a phospholipid bilayer composed of 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC) by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). We focused on the temperature and hydration dependence of the low-frequency spectra of a gel-phase sample. The spectra of the dehydrated and hydrated samples showed shoulder bands at 45 and 30 cm(-1), respectively. In contrast to the dehydrated sample, in the hydrated sample spectra the slope of the temperature change of the absorption coefficient increased sharply around 240 K. This result suggests that water molecules affect the change in the low-frequency dynamics. We obtained the absorption coefficient difference spectra for different hydration levels to clarify the mechanism of the spectral change.