Abstract
In this work, we report the development of a simplified microrheological method that can be used to rapidly study soft materials. This approach uses fluorescence polarization and a plate reader format to measure the rotational diffusion of nanoparticles within a sample of interest. We show that this measurement is sensitive to viscosity-dependent changes in polymeric soft materials and is correlated with particle tracking microrheology, a previously validated measure of microrheology. Using these fluorescence polarization-based measurements, we describe formalism that enables reasonable estimation of viscosity in polymeric materials after accounting for length-scale dependent effects of the polymer environment on the nanoparticle rotational diffusion. The use of a plate reader format allows this approach to be higher throughput, less technically challenging, and more widely accessible than standard macro- and microrheological methods, making it available to non-experts. This approach has potential applications in academic and industry settings where conventional rheological equipment may not be available, as well as in clinical settings to rapidly characterize human clinical samples.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
