Rotational and translational diffusion of copper oxide nanorods measured with holographic video microscopy
Abstract.
We use holographic video microscopy to track the three-dimensional translational and rotational diffusion of copper oxide nanorods suspended in water. Rayleigh-Sommerfeld back-propagation of a single holographic snapshot yields a volumetric reconstruction of the nanorod's optical scattering pattern, from which we estimate both its dimensions and also its instantaneous position and orientation. Analyzing a video sequence yields measurements of the freely diffusing nanorod's dynamics, from which we estimate the technique's resolution.
Optical methods are increasingly widely used to manipulate (1); (2); (3); (4) and track (4) nanostructured materials. The high-numerical-aperture optics required for such studies offer optimal spatial resolution, but severely restrict the accessible depth of focus to within a few micrometers. Confocal and deconvolution microscopies overcome this limitation by scanning through the sample and assembling the resulting axial slices into a volumetric data set. Scanning takes time, however, and so is of limited utility for studying dynamic processes that evolve in three dimensions. Some implementations also require the sample to be fluorescently labelled, which may not be desirable. Scanning probe microscopy and electron microscopy both have superior spatial resolution, but typically are not compatible with three-dimensional micromanipulation techniques, particularly under environmental conditions.
Holographic video microscopy addresses all of these concerns by providing high-resolution volumetric information at video frame rates (5); (6); (7), even for non-fluorescent samples. When applied to colloidal spheres, holographic video microscopy can yield individual particles' three dimensional positions with nanometer resolution (7); (8); (9); (10), to characterize particles' optical properties (7); (10); (11) and to measure their dimensions with sub-nanometer precision (7); (10); (11). Such extremely high-resolution analyses have been applied to homogeneous (5); (6); (7); (9); (10); (11) and coated (10); (11) spheres, but not previously to nanostructured materials with other shapes. Here we demonstrate high-resolution holographic tracking of copper oxide nanorods diffusing freely in three dimensions. The results extend recently reported investigations of rotational and translational diffusion of ellipsoids (12) and other rod-like colloidal particles (13); (14); (15) by providing three-dimensional tracking information at video frame rates.
In-line holographic microscopy (5); (6)
replaces the incandescent illuminator of
conventional bright-field microscopy
with a collimated coherent light source.
Our implementation, shown schematically in Fig. 1(a),
illuminates the sample with
a continuous-wave solid state laser
(Coherent Verdi 5W) operating at a vacuum wavelength of
.
Light scattered by the object interferes with the unscattered
portion of the laser beam in the focal plane
of an objective lens
(Zeiss S Plan Apo,
, oil immersion, numerical aperture 1.4)
mounted in an inverted
optical microscope (Zeiss Axiovert TV 100 S).
The magnified interference pattern is projected by a video
eyepiece (
)
onto a video camera (NEC TI-324AII), which
records its intensity at 30 frames per second.
This system provides a total magnification of
.
Each holographic
snapshot
contains comprehensive information on the scatterers' shape, composition,
position and orientation within the laser beam.
How to retrieve that information is clarified by considering how
the image is formed.
We model the incident field as a plane wave
| (1) |
propagating along
with wavenumber
in a medium of refractive index
.
Its amplitude
may vary with position
,
but we assume that its polarization
does not.
An object located
upstream of the microscope's focal plane scatters
some of this incident beam, thereby creating the scattered field
| (2) |
at position
and height
relative to the center of the
focal plane.
The scattered wave's
complex amplitude
,
and polarization
depend on the sample's shape, size and composition as well
as its position and orientation relative to the coordinate
system centered on the focal plane (16).
The image in the microscope's focal plane at
is therefore
| (3) |
If the scattered field's dependence on the sample's position and composition are known, Eq. (3) may be fit to an experimentally obtained hologram to locate and characterize the sample (7); (10). In the particular case of isotropic homogeneous colloidal spheres, such fits yield the position of each particle in a holographic snapshot to within a nanometer, and their radii and refractive indexes to within a part in a thousand (10). A holographic video sequence then provides time-resolved sequences of such single-particle measurements. This approach, however, is computationally intensive and requires an accurate and numerically stable model for light scattering by the sample. When such a model is not available, quantitative information still may be obtained by reconstructing a time-resolved three-dimensional snapshot of the scattered field from each recorded hologram (5); (6).
Unprocessed holograms, such as the example in Fig. 1(b),
are marred by nonuniform illumination and artifacts due to light scattered
by fixed objects and surfaces in the optical train.
Previous studies addressed these imperfections either by subtracting
a previously recorded background image (5) or by normalizing
with an estimate for the background's amplitude (6).
We instead
normalize by the illumination's intensity (7); (10),
, to obtain
![]() |
(4) |
This normalization reduces additive artifacts to an additive
constant and substantially suppresses multiplicative artifacts.
The qualitative improvement can be seen in the normalized
hologram in Fig. 1(c).
In practice, we obtain the background image for a moving
object by computing the
median intensity at each pixel over a time window long
compared with the object's residence at any point.
A running median filter then provides an updated estimate
for
even if the background itself were to change
over time.
The third term in Eq. (4)
is likely to be smaller than the other two because the
scattered wave diverges as it propagates to the focal plane, but
the illuminating beam does not.
Neglecting it is best justified for small samples located well
above the focal plane.
In this limit, out-of-plane
rotations of the polarization also may be considered to be small.
Assuming, furthermore, that the sample is optically isotropic,
we may approximate
.
Finally, if the illumination does not vary
too substantially across the field of view, the reduced amplitude
is merely the scattered amplitude in the focal plane
normalized to unit intensity.
These considerations then yield
| (5) |
The scattered field at height
above the focal plane then can be
reconstructed from Eq. (5) with
(18); (19); (6)
![]() |
(6) |
where
is the Fourier transform of
and where
| (7) |
is the Fourier transform of the Rayleigh-Sommerfeld propagator
(17); (18); (19).
Although Eq. (7) applies in the paraxial
approximation, it yields more accurate results than the
Fresnel approximation that often is applied to numerical reconstruction
of holograms (19).
The associated intensity
is an estimate for the image that would be observed at
and
.
We now use this general formalism to track the translational
and rotational motions of cylindrical nanorods diffusing in water.
Copper oxide nanorods were prepared with the
simple hotplate technique method (20).
A substrate of Cu foil (99.99% purity, Sigma-Aldrich)
was polished to remove the native oxide layer on the surface.
It then was heated in a Thermolyne 4800
box furnace at 400
for 24
.
The Cu substrate was returned to room temperature over 8
before being removed from the oven.
After this treatment, the foil is covered with a uniform
film of CuO nanorods, each less than five
hundred nanometers in diameter
and up to 100 micrometers long.
The film can be peeled off of the remaining copper substrate
and the nanowires separately dispersed by sonication in
deionized water for 5
.
A small droplet of this aqueous dispersion was sealed in
the 100 ![]()
thick gap between
a glass microscope slide and a glass cover slip whose edges were
bonded with Norland Type 81 optical adhesive.
This sample then was mounted on the microscope for observation
at room temperature.
Less than 100 ![]()
of light was projected into the sample
over the 3 ![]()
diameter of a Gaussian beam.
This illumination was too weak to raise the
temperature of the aqueous sample appreciably,
to alter the nanorods'
structure (21), or to exert measurable
forces on the individual nanorods.
The image in Fig. 2(a) shows the
numerically refocused image
of a freely floating nanorod whose axis
was aligned approximately along the midplane of the sample cell,
roughly 50 ![]()
from either wall.
The nanorod appears as a dark feature in
because it both absorbs and scatters the green illumination.
The false-colored three-dimensional reconstruction
was computed with axial steps of 101 ![]()
,
consistent with the in-plane resolution.
The rays converging from the bottom of the reconstruction toward
the center should be a faithful representation of the nanorod's
light scattering pattern.
Those features that continue upward through the focus are artifacts
that arise because Eq. (6)
assumes the medium to be homogeneous, an assumption that breaks
down at the position of the nanorod.
The field upstream of the nanorod should be
featureless.
Faint artifacts also are evident radiating upward and outward
from the lower edge of the reconstruction, which are due to
the twin image.
For these reasons,
should not be considered
a straightforward image of the nanorod, but nevertheless is useful for tracking
its position and orientation in three dimensions.
The intensity profile along the nanorod's axis is plotted in
Fig. 2(b) and
suggests that it
is
long.
Nonuniformities in this axial trace recur in all of this nanorod's
holograms, independent of its position and orientation.
Consequently, they appear to be ascribable to irregularities
in the nanorod itself
rather than to nonuniformities in the illumination or artifacts
of the holographic reconstruction.
Fig. 2(c) shows a transverse intensity
profile through the middle of the nanorod in the horizontal plane.
The dip in the intensity has a full width at
half-maximum of
, which
reflects the nanorod's actual diameter
broadened by
diffraction.
A simple estimate based on Gaussian broadening,
| (8) |
yields
for the rod's diameter,
which is consistent with results obtained for similar samples
by electron microscopy.
We quantified the nanorod's three-dimensional
position and orientation
relative to the coordinate system centered on the focal plane
by analyzing the deviation from background intensity
of volumetric reconstructions such as those in Fig. 2.
Estimates for the nanorod's axis were computed
by intensity-weighted skeletonization (22)
of
.
Those points identified as lying on the axis then are fit
by linear regression
to a line segment whose center is taken to be the estimate
for the rod's position
at time
and whose orientation is the estimate for the
nanorod's orientation
,
where
and
are polar and azimuthal angles respectively.
The fit segment's length is found to be substantially
independent of orientation
even when the nanorod is oriented axially, as in Fig. 3(b).
This provides support both for the use of Rayleigh-Sommerfeld
back propagation to reconstruct the three-dimensional intensity distribution
and also for skeletonization as a means to locate the nanorod
within reconstructed volumetric data.
Analyzing the volumetric reconstruction in this way is complementary to direct analysis of the hologram itself, which has proved fruitful for tracking colloidal spheres (7); (8); (10). It has the advantage of not requiring a specific model for light scattering by the rod, it is less sensitive to details of the scattering geometry, and also is far less computationally intensive. Consequently, Rayleigh-Sommerfeld volumetric imaging offers much-needed real-time feedback for optical micromanipulation techniques that increasingly are being used to assemble nanorods and nanowires into three-dimensional functional structures (2); (3). It also makes possible real-time analysis of nanorods' three-dimensional rotational and translational Brownian motion.
A Brownian rod's rotational diffusion generally is independent of its translational motion and can be quantified through displacements of the orientational unit vector (23)
| (9) |
where the rotational diffusion coefficient is given by (23)
| (10) |
in a fluid of viscosity
.
The constant
depends on the
detailed shape of the cylindrical rod and is known analytically
only for special cases, such as prolate ellipsoids (23).
Equation (9) also includes terms
accounting for the mean-squared error
in measurements of
(24); (25)
and for blurring during the
exposure time
of the camera (25).
Measurements of
not only provide information
on the nanorod's structure and dynamics, they also enable us
to estimate the measurement error inherent in our
holographic rod-tracking procedure.
Fig. 4(a) shows the evolution of
for the nanorod in Fig. 3
obtained from a continuous
5
trajectory recorded at 1/30
intervals.
The data agree well with the prediction of Eq. (9)
and yield a rotational diffusion coefficient of
,
which is two orders of magnitude greater than the
largest value accessible by confocal microscopy
of nanorods in viscous media (13).
The fit estimate for the error,
,
corresponds to an error in
orientation of roughly
.
The associated characteristic rotation time
is short enough that
the rod explores all orientations over the duration of
the measurement, as can be seen in the inset to Fig. 4(a).
Because a rod's viscous drag coefficient depends on its orientation, its translational diffusion is coupled to its rotational diffusion when viewed in the laboratory frame (12); (23). Translational fluctuations are separable from rotations in the nanorod's proper frame of reference, however. Consequently, the axial and transverse projections of the center-of-mass translations satisfy the standard Einstein-Smoluchowski relations,
| (11) | ||||
| (12) |
with diffusion coefficients (23)
| (13) |
Equations (11) and
(12) are corrected
for the camera's exposure time
(25).
They also account for
measurement errors
and
along and normal to the nanorod's axis under the
assumption that these errors are independent of orientation,
.
They omit higher-order
dependence on
.
Fitting Eqs. (11) and (12)
to the data plotted in Fig. 4(b) yields
and
.
Given the experimental temperature,
,
and the associated viscosity of water,
,
Eq. (13)
then suggests that
and
,
both of which are consistent with results obtained directly
from holographic imaging.
From the same fits we obtain
,
This suggests that our procedure tracks the center of
the nanorod to within
roughly one pixel in all three dimensions.
We have demonstrated that
individual holographic video snapshots may be
interpreted with Rayleigh-Sommerfeld back-propagation
to measure the instantaneous three-dimensional
position and orientation
colloidal nanorods.
Dynamical information obtained from sequences of holographic
images agrees well with the predicted behavior of Brownian
cylinders and confirms a measurement resolution of
100 ![]()
in all dimensions.
The technique's time resolution is limited only by the frame rate of
the video camera.
Rayleigh-Sommerfeld back-propagation has the advantage of providing
a model-free approach to reconstructing the light field scattered
by microscopic objects, and thus lends itself to high-speed
processing and imaging.
Holographic video microscopy thus can provide real-time feedback
for three-dimensional micromanipulation of nanowires and nanorods.
It also is useful for studying the rotational and translational
motions of nanorods subjected to external forces.
The present study
takes advantage of the comparative simplicity of single isolated
nanorod's diffusion when viewed in the co-oriented frame of reference.
This advantage is lost when studying the coupled motions
of multiple nanorods, so that measurements of nanorods' hydrodynamic
and electrostatic interactions will be substantially more
challenging than corresponding measurements on colloidal spheres.
This complexity, however, arises from the underlying physics,
rather than the technique, and constitutes an interesting
and potential fruitful area of application for the methods
described here.
We gratefully acknowledge helpful conversations with Tom Lubensky and Fred MacKintosh. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant Number DMR-0922680.
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