AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Applied Surface Science Monday Sessions
       Session AS+BI+NS-MoM

Invited Paper AS+BI+NS-MoM1
The Development of NSOM for Live Cell Applications

Monday, October 31, 2005, 8:20 am, Room 206

Session: Nanoscale Analysis: Biomaterial and Other Applications
Presenter: R.C. Dunn, University of Kansas
Authors: R.C. Dunn, University of Kansas
O. Mooren, University of Kansas
Correspondent: Click to Email
Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) is a scanning probe technique that enables optical measurements to be conducted with nanometric spatial resolution. This technique offers single molecule detection limits, high spatial resolution, and simultaneous force and optical mapping of sample properties. As such, it has found applications in many areas including the study of thin films, polymers, and solid-state materials. Perhaps its greatest potential, however, lies in the biological sciences, where fluorescence techniques are well developed for tagging specific proteins or structures or following dynamic processes such as calcium signaling. To date, NSOM measurements on viable cells remains problematic due to the forces involved in maintaining the tip close to the sample. Our laboratory has been actively developing new methods for conducting NSOM measurements that are amenable with soft and fragile samples such as living cells. We recently reported a new NSOM tip design built around a conventional atomic force microscopy tip that can be used to make high resolution fluorescence measurements on living cells. The development of these techniques and their application to the study of lipid rafts and nuclear pore complexes in the nuclear envelope will be discussed.