.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Microrheology with Optical Tweezers: Measuring the relative viscosity of solutions ‘at a glance’

Manlio Tassieri, Francesco Del Giudice, Emma J. Robertson, Neena Jain, Bettina Fries, Rab Wilson, Andrew Glidle, Francesco Greco, Paolo Antonio Netti, Pier Luca Maffettone, Tihana Bicanic & Jonathan M. Cooper

We present a straightforward method for measuring the relative viscosity of fluids via a simple graphical analysis of the normalised position autocorrelation function of an optically trapped bead, without the need of embarking on laborious calculations. The advantages of the proposed microrheology method are evident when it is adopted for measurements of materials whose availability is limited, such as those involved in biological studies. The method has been validated by direct comparison with conventional bulk rheology methods, and has been applied both to characterise synthetic linear polyelectrolytes solutions and to study biomedical samples.

DOI

No comments: