Label-free single molecule imaging with numerical aperture-shaped interferometric scattering microscopy

Our ability to optically interrogate nanoscopic objects is controlled by the difference between their extinction cross sections and the diffraction-limited area to which light can be confined in the far-field. Here, we show that a partially transmissive spatial mask placed near the back focal plane...

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Những tác giả chính: Cole, D, Young, G, Weigel, A, Kukura, P
Định dạng: Journal article
Được phát hành: American Chemical Society 2017
Miêu tả
Tóm tắt:Our ability to optically interrogate nanoscopic objects is controlled by the difference between their extinction cross sections and the diffraction-limited area to which light can be confined in the far-field. Here, we show that a partially transmissive spatial mask placed near the back focal plane of a high numerical aperture microscope objective enhances the extinction contrast of a scatterer near an interface by approximately T^-1/2, where T is the transmissivity of the mask. Numerical aperture-based differentiation of background from scattered light represents a general approach to increasing extinction contrast and enables routine label-free imaging down to the single molecule level.