抄録
Control of the nucleation process of hen egg white lysozyme was demonstrated under application of an external alternating current (AC) electric field. This is attributed to the electrostatic energy added to the chemical potentials of the liquid and solid phases. The nucleation rate can be controlled by focusing on the difference in the permittivities between the liquid and solid phases, while the population of nucleated polymorphs can be regulated by focusing on the difference in the permittivities between two polymorphs. That is, the control of both an increase and decrease in the nucleation rate or the population of nucleated polymorphs was achieved by regulating the magnitude of those permittivities of each phase with various imposed frequencies, by utilizing a large dielectric relaxation of protein crystals.
