Towards nanoelectromechanical photothermal localization microscopy

TL;DR

This paper advances a label-free nanomechanical photothermal microscopy technique to achieve super-resolution localization microscopy with high precision, avoiding potential artifacts from molecular labeling.

Contribution

It introduces optimized methods for nanomechanical photothermal microscopy to enable super-resolution imaging with 3 Å precision using gold nanoparticles.

Findings

Achieved 3 Å localization precision with gold nanoparticles

Demonstrated polarization-dependent absorption detection

Opened possibilities for polarization modulation imaging

Abstract

Single-molecule microscopy has become an indispensable tool for biochemical analysis. The capability of characterizing distinct properties of individual molecules without averaging has provided us with a different perspective for the existing scientific issues and phenomena. Recently, the super-resolution fluorescence microscopy techniques have overcome the optical diffraction limit by the localization of molecule positions. However, the labelling process can potentially modify the intermolecular dynamics. Based on the highly-sensitive nanomechanical photothermal microscopy reported previously, we propose optimizations on this label-free microscopy technique towards localization microscopy. A localization precision of 3 $\unicode{x212B}$ is achieved with gold nanoparticles, and the detection of polarization-dependent absorption is demonstrated, which opens the door for further improvement with polarization modulation imaging.