Optical tweezers based active microrheology of sodium polystyrene sulfonate (NaPSS)

We used oscillatory optical tweezers to investigate the microrheological properties of Sodium polystyrene sulfonate (NaPSS; Mw = 70 kDa) polymer solutions with different concentrations from 0.001 mM to 10 mM in terms of elastic modulus G'(ω) and loss modulus G"(ω) as a function of angular frequency (ω) in the range of 6 rad/s to 6000 rad/s. The viscoelastic properties (including zero-shear-rate viscosity, crossing frequency and transition frequency) as a function of polymer concentration, deduced from our primary data, reveal the subtle structural changes in the polymer solutions as the polymer concentration increases from dilute to semi-dilute regimes, passing through the critical micelle formation concentration and the polymer overlapping concentration. The experimental results are consistent with the Maxwell model in some regime, and with the Rouse model in other, indicating the transient network character and the micelles formation in different regimes.