Photoacoustic monitoring of real time blood and hemolymph sedimentation

The dynamics of blood and hemolymph sedimentation is studied in real time using the photoacoustic technique. A modified configuration of a conventional photoacoustic cell is used, where the advantage of this methodology is that the sample is not illuminated directly and that the process can be monitored through the measurement of the thermal contact between a reference material and the blood. It is demonstrated that during the process the thermal effusivity decreases at the region of contact between the sample and the reference materials. The usefulness of these results in real time monitoring using photothermal techniques is discussed. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.