Euler buckling in red blood cells: An optically driven biological micromotor

Details Euler buckling in red blood cells: An optically driven biological micromotor Euler buckling in red blood cells: An optically driven biological micromotor

2005-01-19

arxiv.org/abs/physics/0501099v2

Phys. Biol. 3 (2006) 67-73

Physics

Biological Physics

Scientific paper

10.1088/1478-3975/3/1/007

We investigate the physics of an optically-driven micromotor of biological origin. A single, live red blood cell, when placed in an optical trap folds into a rod-like shape. If the trapping laser beam is circularly polarized, the folded RBC rotates. A model based on the concept of buckling instabilities captures the folding phenomenon; the rotation of the cell is simply understood using the Poincar\`e sphere. Our model predicts that (i) at a critical intensity of the trapping beam the RBC shape undergoes large fluctuations and (ii) the torque is proportional to the intensity of the laser beam. These predictions have been tested experimentally. We suggest a possible mechanism for emergence of birefringent properties in the RBC in the folded state.

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