• Topic
• Acknowledgements

Topic

Many chemical reactions and biological processes were investigated by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy FCS. Often, a confocal microscope is used to locally excite a molecule group containing very few fluorophores. The FCS method yields a high signal to noise ratio SNR if very few fluorophores are excited simultaneously. Hence, FCS provides an elegant method to measure single molecule behaviour and parameters.

This report describes a new approach to confine the excitation light simultaneously in a multitude of light fields. In contrast to the classical approach based on confocal microscopy and limited by diffraction, a thin metal film containing periodic nanoholes is used. Our approach paves the way to parallel FCS based on a simple microoptical system and promises light confinement beyond the limits of confocal optics. The computation method used to design a sample mask by simulation is outlined.

Acknowledgements

This diploma could not be finished without the assistance and generous support of many people. In particular, we are in dept to Prof. Theo Lasser, MER Patrick Hoffmann, Dr. Ivo Utke, Dr. Tiemo Anhut, Kai Hassler and Alexandre Perentes at EPFL. Also, we would like to thank Prof. Olivier Martin at ETHZ and Prof. Rudolf Rigler at Karolinska Institutet.

We are graceful to everybody else who has supported this work.

Lausanne, 21/2/2003

Marcel Leutenegger
Adrian von Mühlenen