Fluorescence near-field microscopy of DNA at sub-10 nm resolution.

We demonstrate apertureless near-field microscopy of single molecules at sub-10 nm resolution. With a novel phase filter, near-field images of single organic fluorophores were obtained with approximately sixfold improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio. The improvement allowed pairs of molecules separated by approximately 15 nm to be reliably and repeatedly resolved, thus demonstrating the first true Rayleigh resolution test for near-field images of single molecules. The potential of this technique for biological applications was demonstrated with an experiment that measured the helical rise of A-form DNA.

[1]  Factors that influence confocal apertureless near-field scanning optical microscopy , 2004 .

[2]  D. Nesbitt,et al.  Fluorescence of single ZnS overcoated CdSe quantum dots studied by apertureless near-field scanning optical microscopy , 2002 .

[3]  Lukas Novotny,et al.  High-resolution near-field Raman microscopy of single-walled carbon nanotubes. , 2003, Physical review letters.

[4]  Andrew G. Glen,et al.  APPL , 2001 .

[5]  P. Tchénio,et al.  Quenching and enhancement of single-molecule fluorescence under metallic and dielectric tips , 2000 .

[6]  Single‐molecule near‐field optical energy transfer microscopy with dielectric tips , 2003 .

[7]  S. Quake,et al.  An apertureless near-field microscope for fluorescence imaging , 2000 .

[8]  S. Zimmerman.  The three-dimensional structure of DNA. , 1982, Annual review of biochemistry.

[9]  A. Bouhelier,et al.  Near-field second-harmonic generation induced by local field enhancement. , 2003, Physical review letters.

[10]  Y. Martin,et al.  Scanning Interferometric Apertureless Microscopy: Optical Imaging at 10 Angstrom Resolution , 1995, Science.

[11]  F. Keilmann,et al.  Near-field probing of vibrational absorption for chemical microscopy , 1999, Nature.

[12]  Stephen R Quake,et al.  Tip-enhanced fluorescence microscopy at 10 nanometer resolution. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[13]  S Kawata,et al.  Evanescent field excitation and measurement of dye fluorescence in a metallic probe near‐field scanning optical microscope , 1999, Journal of microscopy.

[14]  D. Pohl,et al.  Single quantum dot coupled to a scanning optical antenna: a tunable superemitter. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[15]  W. Moerner,et al.  Illuminating single molecules in condensed matter. , 1999, Science.

[16]  Charles M. Lieber,et al.  High-yield assembly of individual single-walled carbon nanotube tips for scanning probe microscopies , 2001 .

[17]  H. Hansma,et al.  Atomic force microscopy of long and short double-stranded, single-stranded and triple-stranded nucleic acids. , 1996, Nucleic acids research.

[18]  W. Olson,et al.  A-form conformational motifs in ligand-bound DNA structures. , 2000, Journal of molecular biology.

[19]  B. Hecht,et al.  Single-molecule near-field optical energy transfer microscopy with dielectric tips. , 2002, Journal of microscopy.

[20]  Reinhard Guckenberger,et al.  High-resolution imaging of single fluorescent molecules with the optical near-field of a metal tip. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[21]  S. Kawata,et al.  Tip-enhanced coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering for vibrational nanoimaging. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[22]  David J. Nesbitt,et al.  Molecular fluorescence in the vicinity of a nanoscopic probe , 2001 .

[23]  B. Hecht,et al.  Optical near-field enhancement at a metal tip probed by a single fluorophore , 2002 .

[24]  O. Martin,et al.  Resonant Optical Antennas , 2005, Science.

[25]  Robert J. Chichester,et al.  Single Molecules Observed by Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy , 1993, Science.

[26]  G S Kino,et al.  Improving the mismatch between light and nanoscale objects with gold bowtie nanoantennas. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[27]  S. Weiss.  Fluorescence spectroscopy of single biomolecules. , 1999, Science.

[28]  V. Protasenko,et al.  Apertureless Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy of Single Molecules , 2004 .

[29]  W. Olson,et al.  3DNA: a software package for the analysis, rebuilding and visualization of three-dimensional nucleic acid structures. , 2003, Nucleic acids research.

[30]  X. Xie,et al.  Near-field fluorescence microscopy based on two-photon excitation with metal tips , 1999 .

[31]  Franz J. Giessibl,et al.  Advances in atomic force microscopy , 2003, cond-mat/0305119.

[32]  H. Hamann,et al.  Near-field fluorescence imaging by localized field enhancement near a sharp probe tip , 2000 .

[33]  F. Keilmann,et al.  Material-specific mapping of metal/semiconductor/dielectric nanosystems at 10 nm resolution by backscattering near-field optical microscopy , 2002 .

[34]  J. Azoulay,et al.  Field enhancement and apertureless near‐field optical spectroscopy of single molecules , 1999, Journal of Microscopy.

[35]  S. Quake,et al.  Correlating AFM Probe Morphology to Image Resolution for Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Tips , 2004 .