Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Materials, Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena, 2018
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to probe the mechanical properties of the soil microbe, Ps... more Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to probe the mechanical properties of the soil microbe, Pseudomonas putida, as a function of the ionic strength (IS). By modeling the linear and nonlinear regimes of the AFM force-indentation data, the spring constant and the Young's modulus of the bacterial cell were estimated, respectively. In addition, the thickness of the biopolymer fringe that covers the bacterial surface was estimated as the transition distance between the linear and nonlinear regimes of a given force-indentation curve. The authors' results indicated that as the IS increased from 0.16 to 0.52 M, the bacterial spring constant remained unchanged, suggesting that the turgor pressure of the bacteria is unchanged in that range. This finding further suggests that P. putida arrives to osmotic equilibrium with its surroundings in the IS range of 0.16 and 0.52 M. Their results further indicated that as the IS increases from 0.02 to 0.52 M, the thickness of the biopolymer f...
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Papers by Samuel Uzoechi