Rotational diffusion microrheology

Abstract

Examining the rotational diffusion of a microparticle suspended in a soft material opens up exciting new opportunities for locally probing the frequency-dependent linear viscoelastic shear modulus, G*(omega). We study the one-dimensional rotational diffusion of a wax microdisk in an aqueous polymer entanglement network using light streak tracking. By measuring the disk's time-dependent mean square angular displacement, <Delta theta(2)(t)>, we predict the polymer solution's G*(omega) using a rotational generalized Stokes-Einstein relation. The good agreement of the predicted modulus with mechanical measurements confirms this new microrheological approach.