Multiple particle tracking to assess the microstructure of biological fluids

Tracking the Brownian motion of colloids was first used about a hundred years ago to demonstrate the molecular nature of matter. Today's colloidal scientists perform particle tracking experiments to assess the structural and mechanical properties of complex materials at a micron length scale. Indeed, the dynamics of micron sized probe particles embedded in a material can be related to the local mechanical response of the system. This probing technique, called microrheology, has received much interest in the last few decades due to the importance of a materials local properties in its function and its macro-scale characteristics. These new assessments are especially relevant in soft matter sciences such as biophysics. Video microscopy particle tracking is an easy technique to implement experimentally. Movies of the fluctuating particles in a sample are recorded and analyzed off-line using custom algorithms. For this reason, it is widely used in studies of soft matter properties and in fluid dynamics. However, behind this apparent simplicity lie a number of subtle limitations that can alter significantly the validity of the measurements. The focus of the parts of this thesis is an exhaustive characterization of the errors incurred in the standard video microscopy particle tracking setup.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Chemical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Savin, Thierry, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Patrick S. Doyle.

• Chemical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36911

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36911