Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 25, 2026

Mechanical Mapping of Spheroids Using Brillouin Spectroscopy
Published on: December 12, 2025
Nonlinear Brillouin spectroscopy: what makes it a better tool for biological viscoelastic measurements
Charles W Ballmann1, Zhaokai Meng1, Vladislav V Yakovlev1,2
1Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4242, USA.
Abstract:
Brillouin spectroscopy is an emerging tool in biomedical imaging and sensing. It is capable of assessing the high-frequency viscoelastic longitudinal modulus with microscopic spatial resolution. Nonlinear Brillouin spectroscopy based on impulsive stimulated Brillouin scattering offers a number of significant advantages over conventional spontaneous and stimulated Brillouin scattering. In this report, we evaluate the accuracy of Brillouin shift measurements in spontaneous and nonlinear Brillouin microscopy by calculating the Allan variance for both CW excited spontaneous Brillouin measurements and nonlinear Brillouin scattering measurements made with both nanosecond and picosecond pulse excitation. We find that impulsive stimulated Brillouin spectroscopy is superior to spontaneous Brillouin spectroscopy in terms of the accuracy of such measurements and demonstrate its application for assessing tiny changes in Brillouin frequency shifts associated with low concentrations of biologically relevant solutions.
Related Concept Videos
Nonlinear Pharmacokinetics: Causes of Nonlinearity
Nonlinear drug absorption can occur when the process is rate-limited by solubility, carrier-mediated transport systems, or saturation of the presystemic gut wall or hepatic metabolism. For instance, high doses of riboflavin...
Nonlinear Pharmacokinetics: Overview
Nonlinearity can arise due to the saturation of plasma protein-binding or...
Nonlinear Pharmacokinetics: Michaelis-Menten Equation
Vmax represents the maximum achievable process rate, while KM, known as the Michaelis constant, signifies the drug concentration at which the process rate reaches half its maximum. This relationship between Vmax, KM, and Cp gives rise to three distinct...
Nonlinear Pharmacokinetics: Role of Transporters
Polymorphisms occurring in drug transporters can alter...
What is Conservation Biology?
Biological Effects of Radiation

