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Updated: Jan 26, 2026

Optimizing Magnetic Force Microscopy Resolution and Sensitivity to Visualize Nanoscale Magnetic Domains
Published on: July 20, 2022
Nanoscale magnetic imaging of ferritins in a single cell
Pengfei Wang1,2,3, Sanyou Chen1,2,3, Maosen Guo1,2,3
1CAS Key Laboratory of Microscale Magnetic Resonance and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Abstract:
The in situ measurement of the distribution of biomolecules inside a cell is one of the important goals in life science. Among various imaging techniques, magnetic imaging (MI) based on the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond provides a powerful tool for the biomolecular research, while the nanometer-scale MI of intracellular proteins remains a challenge. Here, we use ferritin as a demonstration to realize the MI of endogenous proteins in a single cell using the NV center as the sensor. With the scanning, intracellular ferritins are imaged with a spatial resolution of ca. 10 nm, and ferritin-containing organelles are colocalized by correlative MI and electron microscopy. The approach paves the way for nanoscale MI of intracellular proteins.
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