A phase field method for simulating morphological evolution of vesicles in electric fields

A phase field method is developed to investigate the morphological evolution of a vesicle in an electric field, taking into account coupled mechanical and electric effects such as bending, osmotic pressure, surface tension, flexoelectricity, and dielectricity of the membrane. The energy of the system is formulated in terms of a continuous phase field variable and the electric potential. The governing equations of the phase field and the electric field are solved using the Galerkin weighted residual approach. The validation and robustness of the algorithm are verified by direct comparisons of the obtained numerical solutions with relevant experimental results. The morphological evolution of an axisymmetric vesicle under an electric field is studied in detail. The results demonstrate that the present method can simulate complex morphological evolutions of vesicles under coupled mechanical–electrical fields. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.