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Determination of the Complete Elastic Moduli of Spider Silks by Brillouin Scattering (CAT#: STEM-ST-0106-YJL)

Introduction

Spider silk is remarkable, possessing an unmatched combination of reversible extensibility and high tensile strength. Furthermore, spider silk possesses highly nonlinear, anisotropic, viscoelastic behaviour which means that the properties are altered when it is mechanically deformed, hampering efforts to extract the purely linear elastic contribution. Understanding the full elastic moduli of spider silk is important in the future engineering of bioinspired materials and in understanding the fundamental behaviour behind this unique material.




Principle

From a quantum point of view, Brillouin scattering is an interaction of light photons with acoustic or vibrational quanta (phonons), with magnetic spin waves (magnons), or with other low frequency quasiparticles interacting with light. The interaction consists of an inelastic scattering process in which a phonon or magnon is either created (Stokes process) or annihilated (anti-Stokes process). The energy of the scattered light is slightly changed, that is decreased for a Stokes process and increased for an anti-Stokes process. This shift, known as the Brillouin shift, is equal to the energy of the interacting phonon and magnon and thus Brillouin scattering can be used to measure phonon and magnon energies.

Applications

Brillouin scattering is used to determine acoustic velocities and elastic properties of a number of crystalline solids, glasses, and liquids.

Procedure

1. Sample preparation
2. Measurement by scattering detection instrument
3. Data analysis

Materials

Brillouin scattering measurement system (Brillouin spectrometer)