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Updated: May 30, 2026

A TIRF Microscopy Technique for Real-time, Simultaneous Imaging of the TCR and its Associated Signaling Proteins
Published on: March 22, 2012
Tight focusing with a binary microaxicon
V V Kotlyar1, S S Stafeev, L O'Faolain
1Image Processing Systems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 151 Molodogvardeyskaya Street, Samara 443001, Russia.
Abstract:
Using a near-field scanning microscope (NT-MDT) with a 100 nm aperture cantilever held 1 μm apart from a microaxicon of diameter 14 μm and period 800 nm, we measure a focal spot resulting from the illumination by a linearly polarized laser light of wavelength λ=532 nm, with its FWHM being equal to 0.58λ, and the depth of focus being 5.6λ. The rms deviation of the focal spot intensity from the calculated value is 6%. The focus intensity is five times larger than the maximal illumination beam intensity.
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