Abstract

The collection of fluorescence from a molecule inside a sphere illuminated with single or counterpropagating plane waves is modeled. The results are applicable to microdroplet-based single molecule detection techniques and to some microparticle characterization techniques using inelastic emission. The large position-dependent variations in the fluorescence collection rate are primarily attributable to variations in the excitation intensity. With plane-wave illumination the collection from shadow regions is low because the incident energy is refracted by the droplet surface away from these regions. The average collection rate from molecules in shadow regions can be increased by illuminating with counterpropagating beams.

© 1997 Optical Society of America

Modeling fluorescence collection from single molecules in microspheres: effects of position, orientation, and frequency

Steven C. Hill, Hasan I. Saleheen, Michael D. Barnes, William B. Whitten, and J. Michael Ramsey
Appl. Opt. 35(31) 6278-6288 (1996)

Collection of emission from an oscillating dipole inside a sphere: analytical integration over a circular aperture

J. David Pendleton and Steven C. Hill
Appl. Opt. 36(33) 8729-8737 (1997)

Real-time observation of single-molecule fluorescence in microdroplet streams

M. D. Barnes, N. Lermer, C.-Y. Kung, W. B. Whitten, J. M. Ramsey, and S. C. Hill
Opt. Lett. 22(16) 1265-1267 (1997)

Fluorescence from airborne microparticles: dependence on size, concentration of fluorophores, and illumination intensity

Steven C. Hill, Ronald G. Pinnick, Stanley Niles, Nicholas F. Fell, Yong-Le Pan, Jerold Bottiger, Burt V. Bronk, Stephen Holler, and Richard K. Chang
Appl. Opt. 40(18) 3005-3013 (2001)

Efficient excitation and collection of single-molecule fluorescence close to a dielectric microsphere

Davy Gérard, Alexis Devilez, Heykel Aouani, Brian Stout, Nicolas Bonod, Jérôme Wenger, Evgeny Popov, and Hervé Rigneault
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 26(7) 1473-1478 (2009)