Rheology and DWS microrheology of concentrated suspensions of the semiflexible filamentous fd virus

Abstract

Microrheology measurements were performed on suspensions of bacteriophage fd with diffusive wave spectroscopy in the concentrated regime, at different values of ionic strength. Viscosity vs. shear rate was also measured, and the effect of bacteriophage concentration and salt addition on shear thinning was determined, as well as on the peaks in the viscosity vs. shear curves corresponding to a transition from tumbling to wagging flow. The influence of concentration and salt addition on the mean square displacement of microspheres embedded in the suspensions was determined, as well as on their viscoelastic moduli up to high angular frequencies. Our results were compared with another microrheology technique previously reported where the power spectral density of thermal fluctuations of embedded micron-sized particles was evaluated. Although both results in general agree, the diffusive wave spectroscopy results are much less noisy and can reach larger frequencies. A comparison was made between measured and calculated shear modulus. Calculations were made employing the theory for highly entangled isotropic solutions of semiflexible polymers using a tube model, where various ways of calculating the needed parameters were used. Although some features are captured by the model, it is far from the experimental results mainly at high frequencies.