Interferometric optical detection and tracking of very small gold nanoparticles at a water-glass interface.

We use an interferometric detection scheme to directly detect single gold nanoparticles with a diameter as small as 5 nm in an aqueous environment. We demonstrate both confocal and wide-field detection of nanoparticles and study signal strength as a function of particle size. Furthermore, we demonstrate a detection speed up to 2 micros. We also show that gold nanoparticles can be readily distinguished from background scatterers by exploiting the wavelength dependence of their plasmon resonances. Our studies pave the way for the application of this detection scheme for particle tracking in biological systems.

[1]  M. Hallek,et al.  Real-Time Single-Molecule Imaging of the Infection Pathway of an Adeno-Associated Virus , 2001, Science.

[2]  M. Broyer,et al.  Direct measurement of the single-metal-cluster optical absorption. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[3]  Akihiro Kusumi,et al.  Phospholipids undergo hop diffusion in compartmentalized cell membrane , 2002, The Journal of cell biology.

[4]  Viola Vogel,et al.  Lifetime of biomolecules in polymer-based hybrid nanodevices , 2004 .

[5]  V. Sandoghdar,et al.  Detection and spectroscopy of gold nanoparticles using supercontinuum white light confocal microscopy. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[6]  Viola Vogel,et al.  Powering nanodevices with biomolecular motors. , 2004, Chemistry.

[7]  David A. Schultz,et al.  Single-target molecule detection with nonbleaching multicolor optical immunolabels. , 2000, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[8]  S. Simon,et al.  Tracking single proteins within cells. , 2000, Biophysical journal.

[9]  J. Gelles,et al.  Imaging of single-molecule translocation through nuclear pore complexes. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[10]  Brahim Lounis,et al.  Photothermal Imaging of Nanometer-Sized Metal Particles Among Scatterers , 2002, Science.

[11]  A. Mehta,et al.  Single-molecule biomechanics with optical methods. , 1999, Science.

[12]  Akihiro Kusumi,et al.  Detection of non-Brownian diffusion in the cell membrane in single molecule tracking. , 2005, Biophysical journal.

[13]  V. Sandoghdar,et al.  Tomographic Plasmon Spectroscopy of a Single Gold Nanoparticle , 2004 .

[14]  S. Gambhir,et al.  Quantum Dots for Live Cells, in Vivo Imaging, and Diagnostics , 2005, Science.

[15]  Gerhard A Blab,et al.  Photothermal heterodyne imaging of individual nonfluorescent nanoclusters and nanocrystals. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[16]  M. Horisberger,et al.  Colloidal gold, a useful marker for transmission and scanning electron microscopy. , 1977, The journal of histochemistry and cytochemistry : official journal of the Histochemistry Society.

[17]  Bernhard Lamprecht,et al.  Spectroscopy of single metallic nanoparticles using total internal reflection microscopy , 2000 .