Further distinction is made in terms of the monolayer hydrophobic thickness of each phase; the LC phase, characterized by the normal orientation of extended lipid tails, is the thick phase, while the LE phase, characterized by randomly oriented and somewhat coiled tails, is the thin phase. To characterize the local monolayer thickness, we define 𝑡 𝐶𝐸 , which is the normal zdistance between the centers of the first C (C1) bead and the last E bead of the tails. We assume that the hydrophobic phase of the monolayer is bounded by the z-coordinates of the C1 and E beads of each tail. These coordinates are obtained as functions of the 𝑥 and 𝑦 coordinates, which are then linearly interpolated on the 2D meshgrid (𝑥, 𝑦), 𝑧 𝐶1 (𝑥 𝐶1 , 𝑦 𝐶1 ) → 𝑧 𝐶1 (𝑥, 𝑦); 𝑧 𝐸 (𝑥 𝐸 , 𝑦 𝐸 ) → 𝑧 𝐸 (𝑥, 𝑦) (11)