title: Physical Limits to Auditory Transduction of Hair-Cell Bundles probed by a Biomimetic System.
abstract: Inspired by auditory hair cells of lower vertebrates, we design and fabricate an opto-electro-mechanical sensor at the border of its spontaneous activity, called Hopf bifurcation critical point. As proposed for biological hair cells, we observe that, as the system approaches the critical point, the frequency selectivity and the force sensitivity are enhanced. However, we find that the enhancement has limits because of its intrinsic nonlinearity, even at the critical point. We also find that the minimally detectable force is not influenced by the active feedback force despite its enhanced sensitivity. This is due to the inevitable heating of the hair bundle, which implies that the active amplification of the hair cell bundle might not lower the threshold level of detectable sound.
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Physics, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 305-764, Republic of Korea [2] The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Strada Costiera 11, 34151 Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Taegeun
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 305-764, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Woo Seok
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 305-764, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Kang-Hun
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Ahn
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D040761:Biomimetic Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D004867:Equipment Design; D018072:Hair Cells, Auditory, Outer / Q000502:physiology*; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology; D040542:Mechanotransduction, Cellular / Q000502:physiology*; D061088:Photoacoustic Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology