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arXiv · 2103.09738

Micromirror total internal reflection microscopy for high-performance single particle tracking at interfaces

Xuanhui Meng·Adar Sonn-Segev·Anne Schumacher·Daniel Cole·Gavin Young·Stephen Thorpe·Robert W. Style·Eric R. Dufresne·Philipp Kukura
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Abstract

Single particle tracking has found broad applications in the life and physical sciences, enabling the observation and characterisation of nano- and microscopic motion. Fluorescence-based approaches are ideally suited for high-background environments, such as tracking lipids or proteins in or on cells, due to superior background rejection. Scattering-based detection is preferable when localisation precision and imaging speed are paramount due to the in principle infinite photon budget. Here, we show that micromirror-based total internal reflection dark field microscopy enables background suppression previously only reported for interferometric scattering microscopy, resulting in nm localisation precision at 6 $\mu$s exposure time for 20 nm gold nanoparticles with a 25 x 25 $\mu$m$^{2}$ field of view. We demonstrate the capabilities of our implementation by characterizing sub-nm deterministic flows of 20 nm gold nanoparticles at liquid-liquid interfaces. Our results approach the optimal combination of background suppression, localisation precision and temporal resolution achievable with pure scattering-based imaging and tracking of nanoparticles at regular interfaces.

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Xuanhui Meng, Adar Sonn-Segev, Anne Schumacher, Daniel Cole, Gavin Young, Stephen Thorpe, Robert W. Style, Eric R. Dufresne, Philipp Kukura. 2021-03-17. Micromirror total internal reflection microscopy for high-performance single particle tracking at interfaces. https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.09738

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