Capillary micromechanics: Measuring the elasticity of microscopic soft objects
Soft Condensed Matter
2012-09-04 v1 Materials Science
Biological Physics
Abstract
We present a simple method for accessing the elastic properties of microscopic deformable particles. This method is based on measuring the pressure-induced deformation of soft particles as they are forced through a tapered glass microcapillary. It allows us to determine both the compressive and the shear modulus of a deformable object in one single experiment. Measurements on a model system of poly-acrylamide microgel particles exhibit excellent agreement with measurements on bulk gels of identical composition. Our approach is applicable over a wide range of mechanical properties and should thus be a valuable tool for the characterization of a variety of soft and biological materials.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1209.0032,
title = {Capillary micromechanics: Measuring the elasticity of microscopic soft objects},
author = {Hans M. Wyss and Thomas Franke and Elisa Mele and David A. Weitz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.0032},
year = {2012}
}