Optical force-induced nonlinearity and self-guiding of light in human red blood cell suspensions.

ABSTRACT: Osmotic conditions play an important role in the cell properties of human red blood cells (RBCs), which are crucial for the pathological analysis of some blood diseases such as malaria. Over the past decades, numerous efforts have mainly focused on the study of the RBC biomechanical properties that arise from the unique deformability of erythrocytes. Here, we demonstrate nonlinear optical effects from human RBCs suspended in different osmotic solutions. Specifically, we observe self-trapping and scattering-resistant nonlinear propagation of a laser beam through RBC suspensions under all three osmotic conditions, where the strength of the optical nonlinearity increases with osmotic pressure on the cells. This tunable nonlinearity is attributed to optical forces, particularly the forward-sca

SUBMITTER: Gautam R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6414597 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature