ShearView: A Compact Stress- and Strain-Controlled Rheometer for Integrated Rheo-microscopy

TL;DR

ShearView is an affordable, open-source rheometer designed for combined rheological measurements and high-resolution microscopy, enabling detailed analysis of soft matter dynamics with customizable protocols.

Contribution

The paper introduces ShearView, a modular, cost-effective rheometer compatible with microscopy, featuring real-time control and synchronization, validated against commercial devices.

Findings

Accurately replicates commercial rheometer results in frequency sweeps.

Enables complex rheological protocols like chirped oscillations.

Provides synchronized optical imaging during rheological experiments.

Abstract

We present ShearView, a compact, cost-effective, and open-source rheometer that enables both strain- and stress-controlled oscillatory shear experiments, while being fully compatible with high-resolution optical microscopy. Designed for transparency and modularity, the device integrates mechanical simplicity, dual feedback control, and real-time synchronization of rheological and optical data, thereby enabling simultaneous investigation of macroscopic mechanical response and microscopic structural dynamics across a wide range of soft matter systems. ShearView is primarily constructed from off-the-shelf components and operated via custom LabVIEW software. Calibration procedures and feedback algorithms allow for the accurate application of arbitrary stress or strain waveforms in both linear and nonlinear regimes. We validate the instrument against a commercial rheometer (Anton Paar MCR 702e), demonstrating excellent agreement in frequency sweeps performed in the linear viscoelastic regime and large-amplitude oscillatory shear for the materials and frequency ranges tested here. In addition, we implement non-standard rheological protocols such as chirped oscillations and recovery rheology. We further illustrate the system capabilities through synchronized imaging during echo and shear-cessation protocols, highlighting its potential to link bulk rheological response with underlying microscopic dynamics. All hardware designs, control software, and example datasets are freely available to facilitate reuse, customization, and educational deployment.