Neutron spin echo (NSE) is used in this work to measure the bending rigidity, k, of self-assembled nanostructures prepared with new glycosylated lipids of biological origin, a class of molecules better known for their surface active properties than for their membrane-forming properties. NSE was chosen as essentially being the only technique allowing to measure k on nanoscale objects of three different shapes, vesicles, membranes, fibers. The use of neutrons is here critical for the structure which is probed by scattering while the dynamics, from which k is derived, is probed by the magnetic interaction between neutrons (spin-1/2) and matter.
