Dark-field digital holographic microscopy for 3D-tracking of gold nanoparticles

We present a new technique that combines off-axis Digital Holography and Dark Field Microscopy to track 100nm gold particles diffusing in water. We show that a single hologram is sufficient to localize several particles in a thick sample with a localization accuracy independent of the particle position. From our measurements we reconstruct the trajectories of the particles and derive their 3D diffusion coefficient. Our results pave the way for quantitative studies of the motion of single nanoparticle in complex media. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America