English

A Self-Assembled Microlensing Rotational Probe

Soft Condensed Matter 2009-10-31 v1 q-bio

Abstract

A technique to measure microscopic rotational motion is presented. When a small fluorescent polystyrene microsphere is attached to a larger polystyrene microsphere, the larger sphere acts as a lens for the smaller microsphere and provides an optical signal that is a strong function of the azimuthal angle. We demonstrate the technique by measuring the rotational diffusion constant of the microsphere in solutions of varying viscosity and discuss the feasibility of using this probe to measure rotational motion of biological systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9809164,
  title  = {A Self-Assembled Microlensing Rotational Probe},
  author = {James P. Brody and Stephen R. Quake},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9809164},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

3 pages with 2 figures (eps format). Paper has been submitted to Applied Physics Letters