Deinococcus radiodurans is a potent radiation resistant bacterium with immense potential in nuclear waste treatment. In this investigation, the translational and rotational dynamics of dilute suspensions of D. radiodurans cultured under controlled growth conditions was studied by the polarized and depolarized dynamic light-scattering (DLS) techniques. Additionally, confocal laser scanning microscopy was used for characterizing the cultured samples and also for identification of D. radiodurans dimer, tetramer, and multimer morphologies. The data obtained showed translational diffusion coefficients (DT) of 1.2 x 10(-9), 1.97 x 10(-9), and 2.12 x 10(-9) cm2 /s, corresponding to an average size of 3.61, 2.22, and 2.06 microm, respectively, for live multimer, tetramer, and dimer forms of D. radiodurans. Depolarized DLS experiments showed very slow rotational diffusion coefficients (DR) of 0.182/s for dimer and 0.098/s for tetramer morphologies. No measurable rotational diffusion was observed for multimer form. Polarized DLS measurements on live D. radiodurans confirmed that the bacterium is nonmotile in nature. The dynamics of the dead dimer and tetramer D. radiodurans were also studied using polarized and depolarized DLS experiments and compared with the dynamics of live species. The dead cells were slightly smaller in size when compared to the live cells. However, no additional information could be obtained for dead cells from the polarized and depolarized dynamic light-scattering studies.