The development of single-molecule techniques provides opportunities to investigate the properties and heterogeneities of individual molecules, which are almost impossible to be obtained in ensemble measurements. Besides aqueous solution, people recently have shown more interest in imaging single fluorescent molecules in organic solvents. However, the contamination of the samples during either the preparation or the imaging processes will severely damage the quality of the single-molecule fluorescent images and provide misleading information. In this work, we developed a new surface-treatment method for single-molecule fluorescence imaging in organic solvents. Comparing with other surface-treatment methods, this method was found to minimize the false signals generated by the non-specific adsorptions of impurities in organic solvents, which facilitated the demanding background removal and fluorescent signal recognition.

Surface preparation for single-molecule imaging in organic solvents

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.