Abstract
We have developed a system for measuring the orientation of single molecules using a conventional wide-field fluorescence microscope with a polarization filter consisting of a polarizer and a compact polarization mode converter. The polarization filter electrically controls the pattern of polarization filtering. Since the polarization of the fluorescence from a single molecule highly depends on the angle between the observation direction and the molecular direction, polarization pattern filtering at the pupil plane of the objective lens allows the orientation of a single molecule to be visualized. Using this system, we demonstrated the orientation detection of single molecules.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Mr. Aikawa and Mr. Kanamaru (Osaka University) for helping with the experiments.
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Hashimoto, M., Yoshiki, K., Kurihara, M. et al. Orientation detection of a single molecule using pupil filter with electrically controllable polarization pattern. Opt Rev 22, 875–881 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10043-015-0143-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10043-015-0143-0