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Free keywords:
Near-field; Scanning near-field optical microscopy; fluorescence microscopy; three dimensional imaging
Abstract:
Scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) yields high-resolution topographic and optical information and constitutes an important new technique for visualizing biological systems. By coupling a spectrograph to a near-field microscope, we have been able to perdorem microspectroscopic measurements with a spatial resolution greatly exceeding that of the conventional optical microscope. Here we present SNO images of Escherischia coli bacteria expressing a mutant green fluorescent protein (GFP), an important reporter molecule in the cell, developmental, and molecular biology. Near-field emission spectra confirm that the fluorescence detected by SNOM arises from bacterially expressed GFP molecules.
