Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) Overview
NTA utilizes the properties of both light scattering and Brownian motion in order to obtain the particle size distribution of samples in liquid suspension. A laser beam is passed through the sample chamber, and the particles in suspension in the path of this beam scatter light in such a manner that they can easily be visualized via a 20x magnification microscope onto which is mounted a camera. The camera, which operates at approximately 30 frames per second (fps), captures a video file of the particles moving under Brownian motion within the field of view of approximately 100 μm x 80 μm x 10 μm.The movement of the particles is captured on a frame-by-frame basis. The proprietary NTA software simultaneously identifies and tracks the center of each of the observed particles, and determines the average distance moved by each particle in the x and y planes. This value allows the particle diffusion coefficient (Dt) to be determined from which, if the sample temperature T and solvent viscosity η are known, the sphere-equivalent hydrodynamic diameter, d, of the particles can be identified using the Stokes-Einstein equation Download the full White Paper as a PDF
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