Imaging Translational and Rotational Diffusion of Single Anisotropic Nanoparticles with Planar Illumination Microscopy

Here we demonstrated a simple yet powerful method, planar illumination microscopy, to directly track the rotational and translational diffusion dynamics of individual anisotropic nanoparticles in solution and living cells. By illuminating gold nanorods (GNRs) with two orthogonal sheets of light and resolving the polarized scattering signal with a birefringent crystal, we readily achieved three-dimensional angular resolving capability for single GNRs in noisy surroundings. The rotational dynamics of individual GNRs dispersed in glycerol/water mixtures with different chemical modification were tracked, and the measured rotational diffusion coefficient was well fitted to a previously reported theoretical model (Torre, J. G. d. I.; Martinez, M. C. L. Macromolecules 1987, 20,661-666; Tirado, M. M.; Torre, J. G. d. I. J. Chem. Phys. 1980, 73, 1986-1993). In addition, the translational and rotational movements of individual GNRs transported by kinesin motor protein on microtubules inside living cells were directly imaged. Compared to its motion in free solution, a GNR attached to motor-protein did not rotate significantly while moving forward. Our method can be further generalized to allow determination of three-dimensional orientation of single dipoles using many different illumination modes.