Guiding a confocal microscope by single fluorescent nanoparticles.
Confocal optical microscopes offer unparalleled high sensitivity and three-dimensional (3D) imaging capability but require slow point-by-point scanning; they are inefficient for imaging moving objects. We propose a more efficient solution. Instead of indiscriminate scanning, we let the focus of the microscope pursue the object of interest such that no time is wasted on uninformative background, allowing us to visualize 3D trajectories of fluorescent nanoparticles in solution with millisecond temporal and ~200 nm spatial resolution.
Cang
Hu
H
Department of Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley, and Physical Biosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Xu
C Shan
CS
Montiel
Daniel
D
Yang
Haw
H
D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D009038:Motion; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity