An attractive force microscope using photothermal vibration is presented. A cantilever is vibrated by the optical absorption of a laser beam whose intensity modulation frequency is at resonance frequency, and the vibration is detected by an optical deflection method. The characteristics of the photothermal vibration and the attractive force gradient versus tip-sample distance have been measured with a Ni foil cantilever. Topographic images of digital memory disks made from a polycarbonate and Mg–Al alloy were recorded.
This paper reports a method for rapid prototyping of cell tissues, which is based on a system that extrudes, aspirates and refills a mixture of cells and thermoreversible hydrogel as a scaffold. In the extruding mode, a cell-mixed scaffold solution in the sol state is extruded from a cooled micronozzle into a temperature-controlled substrate, which keeps the scaffold in the gel state. In the aspiration mode, the opposite process is performed by Bernoulli suction. In the refilling mode, the solution is extruded into a groove created in the aspiration mode. The minimum width of extruded hydrogel pattern is 114 ± 15 µm by employing a nozzle of diameter 100 µm, and that of aspirated groove was 355 ± 10 µm using a 500 µm-diameter nozzle. Gum arabic is mixed with the scaffold solution to avoid peeling-off of the gel pattern from the substrate. Patterning of Sf-9 cell tissue is demonstrated, and the stability of the patterned cell is investigated. This system offers a procedure for rapid prototyping and local modification of cell scaffolds for tissue engineering.
Measurements of refractive indices (RIs) of intracellular components can provide useful information on the structure and function of cells. The present study reports, for the first time, determination of the RI of an isolated mitochondrion in isotonic solution using retardation-modulated differential interference contrast microscopy. The value was 1.41 ± 0.01, indicating that mitochondria are densely packed with molecules having high RIs. Further, the RIs of each mitochondrion were significantly correlated with the mitochondrial membrane potential, an index of mitochondrial activity. These results will provide useful information on the structures and functions of cells based on the intracellular distribution of RIs.
Summary: We produced a new system for measuring the small photoelastic constant of a polymer thin film with a small birefringence. Using our mesurement system, we evaluated the photoelastic constant of a polymer film in real time by quantitative analysis. Photoelastic constants of 11.30 Â 10 À12 Pa À1 for a cellulose triacetate film and 78.38 Â 10 À12 Pa À1 for a polycarbonate film were obtained. Furthermore, we obtained a small photoelastic constant of 0.12 Â 10 À12 Pa À1 for a cycloolefin film for liquid crystal displays, using our new measurement system. This value is very small. We emphasize that, if a small change in retardation and stress cannot be detected simultaneously using our system, then we cannot obtain such a small photoelastic constant.
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