We are clarifying the phenomena of protein diffusion inside living organisms. The difficulty in measuring protein diffusion lies in the fact that proteins diffuse extremely slow compared to other substances, due to its large molecular mass. In this lab, we are visualizing protein diffusion at very small scales with a phase-shifting interferometer, which is a highly accurate real-time measurement device. This has allowed us to determine a quantitative relation between the diffusion of proteins and the environmental conditions, such as temperature and pH.
We are currently constructing a self-designed large-scale phase-shifting interferometer with a circular visualization area of 30 cm in diameter. The measurement device is a Mach-Zehnder type interferometer with a common path configuration to reduce the visual noise created by the air. Starting with high-accurate measurements of natural convection around a vertical plate, we are conducting quantitative evaluation of the temperature field within the flow field.
We have improved the conventional interferometer to measure transport phenomena in a micro-scale environment. With the introduction of the phase-shifting interferometer, we succeeded to measure with high accuracy the absorption of a gas in a liquid boundary. We are currently expanding this technique to complex systems that include CO2.
We are conducting visualization of temperature and concentration fields under micro-gravity conditions inside free-fall airplanes and rockets. We are conducting visualizations of the combined fields of concentration and temperature where natural convection is suppressed due to the absence of gravity.
