Design of a system to measure light scattering from individual cells excited by an acoustic wave.

A system to measure light scattering from individual cells excited by an acoustic wave was designed, and tests were performed on live Jurkat cells. Cells passing in a laminar stream within a water bath were excited by a focused ultrasound pulse, while the scattered light from a laser beam was monitored at various scattering angles. The cells were modeled as viscoelastic liquid drops, which return to equilibrium via shape oscillations after an acoustically-induced deformation. The Fast Fourier Transform of the scattered light signal was used to extract information about the highly-damped resonant frequencies of the cells, and the detected frequencies are consistent with theoretical predictions.