Three-dimensional light-scattering and deformation of individual biconcave human blood cells in optical tweezers.

For studying the elastic properties of a biconcave red blood cell using the dual-trap optical tweezers without attaching microbeads to the cell, we implemented a three-dimensional finite element simulation of the light scattering and cell's deformation using the coupled electromagnetic and continuum mechanics modules. We built the vector field of the trapping beams, the cell structure layout, the hyperelastic and viscoelastic cell materials, and we reinforced the constraints on the cell constant volume in the simulation. This computation model can be useful for studying the scattering and the other mechanical properties of the biological cells.