One-dimensional jumping optical tweezers for optical stretching of bi-concave human red blood cells.
We report the experimental demonstration of optical stretching of individual bio-concave human red blood cells (RBCs) with one-dimensional jumping optical tweezers. We trapped a RBC in isotonic buffer solution in a conventional stationary single-beam gradient-force optical trap and discretely scanned the trapping beam with an acousto-optic modulator such that the focal point of the trapping beam jumped back-and-forth between two fixed points. At the jumping frequency on the order of a 100 Hz and higher, and the jumping distance in the range of a few microns, the bi-concave RBC was stably trapped and stretched. The elongation of the stretched RBC was measured as a function of the beam-scanning amplitude, and the experimental results were explained qualitatively by a theoretical model.
Institute of Biophotonics Engineering, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Guan-Bo
GB
Liao
Paul B
PB
Bareil
Yunlong
Y
Sheng
Arthur
A
Chiou
D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004548:Elasticity; D006801:Humans; D008846:Micromanipulation / Q000379:methods*; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D052898:Optical Tweezers; D013314:Stress, Mechanical