Take an image of a single fluorophore with a microscope. When the fluorophore is pointing just the right way, you will see a donut on the camera. Surprising, right? But that’s not even always the case. With some lenses, the donut is completely invisible due to a bright central spot of light. Find out how to calculate such things (free software available) and when to expect a donut (or not) in our new work on “Quantification of the NA dependent change of shape in the image formation of a z-polarized fluorescent molecule using vectorial diffraction simulations”.
The scientific publication is available in the following link: https://doi.org/10.1002/jemt.24060
For an animated visualization of the paper, please visit: https://youtu.be/J48E7sDr7lA