Optical microscopy using a single-molecule light source

Rapid progress in science on nanoscopic scales has promoted increasing interest in techniques of ultrahigh-resolution optical microscopy. The diffraction limit can be surpassed by illuminating an object in the near field through a sub-wavelength aperture at the end of a sharp metallic probe1,2. Proposed modifications3,4 of this technique involve replacing the physical aperture by a nanoscopic active light source. Advances in the spatial5 and spectral6 detection of individual fluorescent molecules, using near-field and far-field methods7, suggest the possibility of using a single molecule8,9 as the illumination source. Here we present optical images taken with a single molecule as a point-like source of illumination, by combining fluorescence excitation spectroscopy10 with shear-force microscopy11. Our single-molecule probe has potential for achieving molecular resolution in optical microscopy; it should also facilitate controlled studies of nanometre-scale phenomena (such as resonant energy transfer) with improved lateral and axial spatial resolution.