Three-Dimensional Superlocalization Imaging of Gliding <i>Mycoplasma mobile</i> by Extraordinary Light Transmission through Arrayed Nanoholes

Abstract

In this paper, we describe super-resolved sampling of live bacteria based on extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) of light. EOT is produced by surface plasmon confinement and coupling with nanostructures. Bacterial fluorescence is excited by the localized fields for subdiffraction-limited sampling. The concept was applied to elucidating bacterial dynamics of gliding <i>Mycoplasma mobile</i> (<i>M. mobile</i>). The results analyzed with multiple <i>M. mobile</i> bacteria show individual characters and reveal that <i>M. mobile</i> undergoes a significant axial variation at 94 nm. The sampling error of the method is estimated to be much smaller than 1/10 of the diffraction limit both in the lateral and depth axis. The method provides a powerful tool for investigation of biomolecular dynamics at subwavelength precision