Defocused Wide‐field Imaging Unravels Structural and Temporal Heterogeneity in Complex Systems

• Published in: Advanced materials (Weinheim) Vol. 21; no. 10‐11; pp. 1079 - 1090
• Main Authors: Dedecker, Peter, Muls, Benoît, Deres, Ania, Uji‐i, Hiroshi, Hotta, Jun‐ichi, Sliwa, Michel, Soumillion, Jean‐Philippe, Müllen, Klaus, Enderlein, Jörg, Hofkens, Johan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim WILEY‐VCH Verlag 20.03.2009; Wiley-VCH Verlag
• Subjects: Chemical Sciences; Chromophores; Conjugated polymers; Defocused wide‐field imaging; Energy transfer; Fluorescence; Nanostructuring; or physical chemistry; Polyphenylene dendrimers; Single‐molecule imaging; Theoretical and; Conjugated polymers; Single-molecule imaging; Nanostructuring; Defocused wide-field imaging; Fluorescence; Chromophores; Energy transfer; Polyphenylene dendrimers
• ISSN: 0935-9648; 1521-4095
• DOI: 10.1002/adma.200801873

Today's miniature devices and biological systems share the fact that their dynamics and properties cannot be understood in terms of macroscopic concepts, but require a thorough understanding of the nanoscale structuring. This structuring is often very heterogeneous, both in time and in space, and is difficult or impossible to resolve with traditional approaches. In this Progress Report, we will discuss how single‐molecule microscopy—and defocused wide‐field imaging in particular—can be used to shed light on these phenomena. Revealing heterogeneity in macromolecular systems such as polymer matrices is difficult to achieve using traditional methods, but is highly suited to single‐molecule imaging. In this Progress Report we discuss some approaches that can provide detailed information on the structure and dynamics of such systems. In particular, we focus on a recent technique, defocused wide‐field imaging, which provides the position and orientation of a single molecule, and how this can be applied to explore phenomena such as polymer dynamics, nanoscale structuring, and energy transfer.