I am trying to fabricate gel with uniformly distributed fluorescence beads
so that by measuring relative intensity of fluorescence signals, calculate
1. how much the gel is pushed
2. how much mechanical forces(compressive) are applied to the gel
I know there are many factors needed to be consider in order to derive compressive force from gel but first want to fabricate the gel and test out.
If there are any commercialized fluorescence gel with known young's number that would be perfect.
Please advice!
An agarose gel might work, if you melt a 2x solution and then mix with fluorescent bead solution. Might be difficult to mix completely uniformly but melting the agarose with beads might damage the fluorophores. Polyacrylamide might be better. You could mix the beads into the acrylamide before polymerisation. Smaller fluorescent beads (20nm) would be best to limit sedimentation.
The gelatine may be useful for you. So, see, please, publications devoted to the fluorescence of gelatine which is filled by particles, f.e, the report of Yuhei Miyauchi, Yoichi Murakami, Shohei Chiashi and Shigeo Maruyama. And what about the change of Young modulus when you are pushing the beads into gel?
The technique is described by M Dembo you use PMMA and cross link coillagen to the surface. Dembo used a sphere sinking into the surface and we used an AFM. The method is well described
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