A wide-field view at single molecules and single particles

PhD ceremony: Mr. F. Lusitani, 12.45 uur, Aula Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: A wide-field view at single molecules and single particles

Promotor(s): prof. P.H.M. van Loosdrecht

Faculty: Mathematic and Natural Sciences

Optical microscopy is among the oldest techniques developed and implemented for modern science; the first microscope dating back to the end of the sixteenth century. Throughout 5 centuries, scientists have greatly benefitted from the remarkable possibilities offered by the observation of nature at small scales in a number of disciplines ranging from biology to medicine and from condensed matter physics to optics. The quest to increase sensitivity and resolution towards smaller and smaller scales, provoked by the demand to gain a much more detailed understanding of the microscopic world, has over the years led to a boost of the capabilities of microscopic techniques, which is continuing even today.

Five centuries of theoretical understanding and technological improvements have provided modern scientist the possibility to study matter at the single molecule level. The single molecule and single particle microscopy techniques developed in the last 20 years and subject of this dissertation, has extended the applications of optical microscopies to new fields such as nanotechnology and material science. Modern single molecule microscopy has provided, and still does, scientists with a powerful tool in the quest of investigating matter at the smallest length scales. How to achieve single molecule sensitivity, how the light behaves when emitted by a single molecule, and how the imaging process occurs are largely discussed in this dissertation together with a number of examples where the technique is applied to the investigation of diverse systems and conditions.