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Title: Passive microrheology of soft materials with atomic force microscopy: A wavelet-based spectral analysis

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4940220· OSTI ID:22489339
;  [1]; ;  [1];  [2]
  1. CNRS, UMR5672, Laboratoire de Physique, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 Allée d'Italie, Université de Lyon, 69007 Lyon (France)
  2. Université Paris-Est, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, SDOA, MAST, IFSTTAR, 14-20 Bd Newton, Cité Descartes, 77420 Champs sur Marne (France)

Compared to active microrheology where a known force or modulation is periodically imposed to a soft material, passive microrheology relies on the spectral analysis of the spontaneous motion of tracers inherent or external to the material. Passive microrheology studies of soft or living materials with atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilever tips are rather rare because, in the spectral densities, the rheological response of the materials is hardly distinguishable from other sources of random or periodic perturbations. To circumvent this difficulty, we propose here a wavelet-based decomposition of AFM cantilever tip fluctuations and we show that when applying this multi-scale method to soft polymer layers and to living myoblasts, the structural damping exponents of these soft materials can be retrieved.

OSTI ID:
22489339
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 108, Issue 3; Other Information: (c) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English