title: Multi-beam single-molecule defocused fluorescence imaging reveals local anisotropic nature of polymer thin films.
abstract: We developed a method to determine full three-dimensional orientation distribution of individual molecules based on wide-field defocused fluorescence imaging. Excitation efficiencies of out-of-plane oriented molecules were improved dramatically by illuminating molecules with multiple laser beams. Our high throughput approach allowed us to obtain unbiased statistical distributions of orientations of doped molecules in spin-coated polymer thin films. We found thickness- and glass transition temperature-dependent distributions of the molecular orientations which reflect local chain orientations and relaxation in the polymer thin films.
authors.affiliation: Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1-S8-44, Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan. habuchi.s.aa@m.titech.ac.jp
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Habuchi
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Oba
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vacha
mesh_terms: D016880:Anisotropy; D004560:Electricity; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D007834:Lasers; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers