Sponsor
This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Chemical Sciences Division. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated for DOE by Battelle under Contract No. DE-AC06-76RLO 1830.
Published In
Physical Review Letters
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-1999
Subjects
Fluorescence microscopy -- Methodology, Fluorescence
Abstract
We present a new scheme for near-field fluorescence imaging using a metal tip illuminated with femtosecond laser pulses of proper polarization. The strongly enhanced electric field at the metal tip (ap15 nm end diameter) results in a localized excitation source for molecular fluorescence. Excitation of the sample via two-photon absorption provides good image contrast due to the quadratic intensity dependence. The spatial resolution is shown to be better than that of the conventional aperture technique. We used the technique to image fragments of photosynthetic membranes, as well as j-aggregates with spatial resolutions on the order of 20 nm.
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.4014
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/7654
Citation Details
Sanchez, E. J., Novotny, L. L., & Sunney Xie, X. X. (1999). Near-field fluorescence microscopy based on two-photon excitation with metal tips. Physical Review Letters, 82(20), 4014-4017.
Description
This is the publisher's final PDF. Article appears in Physical Review Letters (http://prl.aps.org/) and is copyrighted by APS Journals (http://publish.aps.org/).