Acoustic Force Spectroscopy

(A) Schematic of Acoustic Force Spectroscopy. Left: optical layout; right: flow cell equipped with piezo element that acts as a resonator for ultrasound waves. (B) Left: photograph of an actual resonator / flow cell. Quarter (US) shown for size comparison. Right: bright-field microscope view of many surface-tethered microspheres actuated by acoustic forces. (C) Cartoon of the proposed experiment: the unfolding of a single BRCA2 protein (thick black curve) by acoustic forces (grey arrow).