Polymer Dynamics, Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy, and the Limits of Optical Resolution

Abstract

In recent years, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy has been increasingly applied for the study of polymer dynamics on the nanometer scale. The core idea is to extract, from a measured autocorrelation curve, an effective mean-square displacement function that contains information about the underlying conformational dynamics. This Letter presents a fundamental study of the applicability of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy for the investigation of nanoscale conformational and diffusional dynamics. We find that fluorescence correlation spectroscopy cannot reliably elucidate processes on length scales much smaller than the resolution limit of the optics used and that its improper use can yield spurious results for the observed dynamics.