Optical Fibre Picorheology

软材料，如食品、生物聚合物混合物(如水果糖浆)和血液凝块都是粘弹性的，因此既可以储存能量，也可以分散能量。事实上，这对于它们在工业和生物学中的正确运作至关重要。我们将建造一种新的装置来测量微量(皮升)此类材料的粘弹性。这将使我们能够构建一幅关于动脉破裂是如何形成血块的图片，因为该设备可以放置在材料的多个位置，采样它们的整个行为。皮氏测速仪的工作频率如此之高(-MHz)，以至于测量可以探测到分子在溶液中抖动的内部动力学。这将允许我们建立模型，将分子结构与它们变形时的流动方式联系起来。血栓与包括血友病和中风在内的一系列疾病有关。食品工业现在使用从理论物理学到确定食品的形状和粘度的一系列复杂的想法。皮氏流变仪将允许对食品进行动态检查，再次允许建立新的结构/运动模型，这些模型随后可以与生产中使用的食谱相关。

Soft materials such as food biopolymer mixtures (eg fruit pastels) and blood clots are both viscoelastic and can thus both store and dissipate energy. Indeed this is vital to their correct functioning in industry and biology. We will build a new device to measure the viscoelasticity of tiny quantities (picolitre) of such materials. It will allow us to construct a picture of how blood clots are formed from ruptured arteries, since the device can be placed at a number of locations in the materials sampling their whole behaviour. The picorheometer functions at such high frequencies (-MHz) that the measurements can probe the internal dynamics of the molecules jiggling around in solution. This will allow us the build models connecting the molecular structure to how they flow when deformed. Blood clots are implicated in a series of medical conditions including hemophilia and strokes. The food industry now uses a large range of sophisticated ideas from theoretical physics to determine the shape and viscosity of foods. The picorheometer will allow foods to be examined dynamically, again allowing new structure/motion models to be built, which can subsequently be related to recipes used in their production.