A New Method to Analyze Orientation Hopping of Single Molecules on Polymer Films

Single molecules can be used as well-defined optical nanoprobes to relay fundamental information about complex systems, in biophysics or biochemistry, or about materials and microscopic interactions in solids or in soft matter. In this paper, we present a new method of intensity-distribution of orthogonal channels combined with fluorescence autocorrelation analysis to analyze the dynamics of single molecules adsorbed onto the polymer films surface by scanning confocal microscopy combined with fluorescence polarization analysis. It is found that the single molecular orientation hops due to thermal driving and neighboring polymer molecules' trapping for approximately 30% of single molecules. We have analyzed the laser-illuminated optical microscopic images in a time-resolved manner. It is shown that our method is applicable for single-molecular rotation-hopping motions of dye molecules dynamics.