Reduction of detection volume in total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy using graphene

We show that it is possible to decrease the thickness of the detection volume of total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM) by ∼35% using a graphene layer in the interface between glass and water layers of a typical TIRFM structure without sacrificing the fluorescence intensity. The highly mobile surface bound electrons of a graphene mono-layer quenches the fluorophores that are less than ∼40 nm away from it. The decreased detection volume using the proposed structure will increase the resolution of a typical TIRFM technique. We find that the results are qualitatively similar for different incidence angles and polarizations of the excitation field. So, the proposed structure will also find applications in variants of TIRFM techniques, e.g., where incidence angles and polarizations are varied.