Study of Dynamic Excitations in Membranes by Optical tweezers (OT) (CAT#: STEM-MB-1303-WXH)

Introduction

The function of biomembranes as tough, flexible partitions of cellular organelles involves a rich diversity of dynamic phenomena. Processes involving membrane shape transformations such as exocytosis are controlled by the specific action of molecular machinery, which transduces readily available chemical energy and uses it to overcome viscous damping and elastic energy barriers. On the micron scale, cell membranes typically inhabit an environment out of equilibrium. Their motion is governed by the interplay between thermal energy, strong dissipation due to the surrounding fluid, and chemical energy. The thermal part is not only responsible for the incessant fluctuations of bilayers, but also leads to nontrivial entropic forces.

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Principle Applications Procedure Materials Notes Related Products

Principle

Optical tweezers (originally called single-beam gradient force trap) are scientific instruments that use a highly focused laser beam to hold and move microscopic and sub-microscopic objects like atoms, nanoparticles and droplets, in a manner similar to tweezers. If the object is held in air or vacuum without additional support, it can be called optical levitation.
The laser light provides an attractive or repulsive force (typically on the order of piconewtons), depending on the relative refractive index between particle and surrounding medium. Levitation is possible if the force of the light counters the force of gravity. The trapped particles are usually micron-sized, or even smaller. Dielectric and absorbing particles can be trapped, too.

Applications

• Optical tweezers are used in biology and medicine (for example to grab and hold a single bacterium, a cell like a sperm cell or a blood cell, or a molecule like DNA).
• Nanoengineering and nanochemistry (to study and build materials from single molecules).
• Quantum optics and quantum optomechanics (to study the interaction of single particles with light).

Procedure

1.Sample preparation
2.Force Calibration
3.Measurement
4.Analysis

Materials

Optical tweezers

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