MULTI-SCALE MICRORHEOLOGY USING FLUCTUATING SEMIFLEXIBLE FILAMENTS AS STEALTH PROBES

ORAL

Abstract

Microrheology is commonly performed using micron-sized beads embedded in the (soft) medium to be studied. Inserting beads can be problematic in confined or hard to access places and can cause artifacts. Here, we introduce the use of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), which are model semi-flexible polymers with non-photobleaching fluorescence, as “stealth probes”. We embedded SWNTs in viscoelastic media and analyzed thermally driven shape fluctuations. We show that the bending dynamics of SWNTs embedded in soft media can be used to probe the viscoelastic properties of such media at multiple scales, corresponding to the wavelengths of the modes analyzed. We found that the viscoelastic moduli of polymer solutions measured by SWNTs are in excellent agreement with those by measured by conventional micro/macrorheology, which validates the method.

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Presenters

  • Kengo Nishi

    University of Gottingen, Faculty of Physics, University of Gottingen

Authors

  • Kengo Nishi

    University of Gottingen, Faculty of Physics, University of Gottingen

  • Christoph F. Schmidt

    Department of Physics, Duke University, Duke University, Third Institute of Physics - Biophysics, University of Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany, Department of Physics,Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA

  • Frederick MacKintosh

    Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy & Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Rice University