Coherence properties of red blood cell membrane motions

Abstract

We use a highly sensitive, noncontact, optical interferometric technique to quantify the red blood cell membrane fluctuations at the nanometer and millisecond scales. The results reveal significant properties of both temporal and spatial coherence associated with the membrane dynamics. We show that these correlations can be accounted for by the viscoelastic properties of the cell membrane. From this measurement, we extract the loss and storage moduli associated with the membrane and find a crossover frequency at which the buffer viscosity seems to become dominant.