title: TIRF microscopy with ultra-short penetration depth.
abstract: Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRF), in both commercial and custom-built configurations, is widely used for high signal-noise ratio imaging. The imaging depth of traditional TIRF is sensitive to the incident angle of the laser, and normally limited to around 100 nm. In our paper, using a high refractive index material and the evanescent waves of various waveguide modes, we propose a compact and tunable ultra-short decay length TIRF system, which can reach decay lengths as short as 19 nm, and demonstrate its application for imaging fluorescent dye-labeled F-actin in HeLa cells.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Tapaswini
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Das
authors.forename: Hongxing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ellisman
authors.forename: Zhaowei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*; D012031:Refractometry