title: Background Suppression in Imaging Gold Nanorods through Detection of Anti-Stokes Emission.
abstract: Metallic nanoparticles have opened the possibility of imaging, tracking, and manipulating biological samples without time limitations. Their low photoluminescence quantum yield, however, makes them hard to detect under high background conditions. In this study we show that it is possible to image gold nanorods by detecting their anti-Stokes emission under resonant excitation. We show that even in the membrane of a cell containing the fluorescent dye Atto 647N, the signal/background of the anti-Stokes emission can be >10, while it is impossible to image the particles with the Stokes emission. The main advantage of this technique is that it does not require any major change in existing fluorescence imaging setups, only the addition of an appropriate short-pass filter in the detection path.
authors.affiliation: Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Aquiles
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Carattino
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology and Molecular Cell Biology, University of Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Veer I P
authors.initials: VIP
authors.lastname: Keizer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology and Molecular Cell Biology, University of Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marcel J M
authors.initials: MJM
authors.lastname: Schaaf
authors.affiliation: Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden, the Netherlands. Electronic address: orrit@physics.leidenuniv.nl.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Orrit
mesh_terms: D005453:Fluorescence; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D043942:Nanotubes / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D006046:Gold