Paper in Nature

Together with Yuyang Wang at the ICMS microscopy facility we have developed a microscopy approach to visualize and track local organization in dynamic polymeric materials. The approach uses a polarization-sensitive fluorescence microscope that allows for the real-time visualization of local molecular alignment with diffraction-limited resolution.

In a project lead by Bert Meijer and Hailin Fu we applied this approach to track the formation of tactoids from supramolecular polymers. The project is an excellent demonstration of the power of correlative analysis because it combines confocal microscopy, polarization imaging, light scattering, atomic force microscopy, and cryo-TEM. It culminated from a collaboration between different groups at ICMS – Institute for Complex Molecular Systems and EHCI – Eindhoven Hendrik Casimir Institute at Eindhoven University of Technology. Also a big thanks to Ezra Bruggeman and Steven Lee for their kind help with the data analysis! Read more here.