Cryogenic localization of single molecules with Angstrom precision

Abstract

The precision in localizing a molecule is ultimately determined by the number of detected photons, which is in turn limited by photobleaching. Currently, fluorophores can be routinely localized to a few tens of nanometers at room temperature. In this work we demonstrate localization precision better than 3 Angstrom by substantial improvement of the molecular photostability at cryogenic temperatures. We discuss the challenges, solutions and promise of our methodology for high-performance co-localization and super-resolution microscopy