Recent Advances in Single Molecule Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Abstract

The field of single-molecule detection (SMD) or single-molecule spectroscopy (SMS) by laser induced fluorescence has seen an explosive development over the past decade. After the pioneering work of Richard Keller’s group in Los Alamos (Dovichi et al., 1983; Shera et al., 1990), the number of publications on single molecule detection and spectroscopy in solution and on surfaces evolved in an exponential manner. Recently, there have been several, partially exhaustive reviews concerning the quickly evolving field of research namely (Meixner, 1998; Xie and Trautman, 1998; Weiss, 1999; Ambrose et al., 1999; Ishii and Yanagida, 2000; Keller et al., 2002; Michalet and Weiss, 2002; Moerner, 2002), and two books have been published (Rigler et al., 2001; Zander et al., 2002). The present paper intends to give an overview of the recent five years of single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy with a strong emphasis on biological applications. It is thus not intended to present a complete bibliography of SMS from the first beginnings, but is thought as an updated continuation of the reviews and books cited above. The scope of the review will be restricted to fluorescence SMS in liquids and on surfaces at room temperature, thus neglecting the broad research done on low-temperature spectroscopy (see e.g. Orrit et al., 1996; Tamarat et al., 2002; Moerner, 2002). Moreover, near-field microscopy of single molecules is also excluded because it would need the attention of a special review by itself.