Optical signal-based improvement of individual nanoparticle tracking analysis

TL;DR

This paper presents an improved nanoparticle tracking analysis method that leverages optical signatures and trajectory weighting to enhance size measurement accuracy, especially for weak scattering nanoparticles with limited data.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel NTA enhancement using optical signatures and trajectory weighting, improving accuracy for both mono- and poly-disperse nanoparticle solutions.

Findings

Enhanced NTA accuracy demonstrated through simulations and experiments.

Improved size quantification for weak scattering nanoparticles.

Effective for both mono-disperse and poly-disperse samples.

Abstract

Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) provides a simple method to determine individual nanoparticle size. However, because size quantification is based on the slowly converging statistical law of random event, its intrinsic error is large, especially in case of limited event number, e.g. for weak scattering nanoparticles. Here, we introduce an NTA improvement by analyzing each individual NP trajectory while taking into account the other trajectories with a weighting coefficient. This weighting coefficient is directly derived from the optical signature of each particle measured by quantitative phase microscopy. The simulations and experimental results demonstrate the improvement of NTA accuracy, not only for mono-disperse but also for poly-disperse particle solutions.