A method and apparatus is disclosed for measurement of the electrophoretic mobility of particles and molecules in solution. A sample of particles is placed in a
cell containing two electrodes that apply an alternating
electric field. A monochromatic
light beam passes through the sample. Light scattered by the particles, along with the unscattered beam, is collected and collimated as it exits the
cell. This beam is combined in
free space with a phase modulated
reference beam. The interference forms a frequency modulated
speckle pattern, which is detected by a
photodetector array. Each
array element collects a
narrow range of well-defined scattering angles. The
signal from each is demodulated to extract the optical phase information providing a first-principle measurement of the electrophoretic mobility of the scattering particles. Each
detector element provides a simultaneous independent measurement. This inherent parallelism drastically increases the amount of information available in a given time. The resulting increased sensitivity extends the mobility measurement to particles below one nanometer, reduces the required concentration and
electric field compared to previous methods. This minimizes damage to fragile samples, increases the
electrode useful life, and reduces
joule heating. Electrophoretic mobility is a critically important parameter for predicting the stability of
nanoparticle suspensions and pharmaceutical formulations such as
protein therapeutics. This invention enables reliable free-
solution phase measurement of these samples.