Dipole-spread-function engineering for simultaneously measuring the 3D orientations and 3D positions of fluorescent molecules

Interactions between biomolecules are characterized by where they occur and how they are organized, e.g., the alignment of lipid molecules to form a membrane. However, spatial and angular information are mixed within the image of a fluorescent molecule–the microscope’s dipole-spread function (DSF). We demonstrate the pixOL algorithm to simultaneously optimize all pixels within a phase mask to produce an engineered Green’s tensor–the dipole extension of point-spread function engineering. The pixOL DSF achieves optimal precision to simultaneously measure the 3D orientation and 3D location of a single molecule, i.e., 4.1^◦ orientation, 0.44 sr wobble angle, 23.2 nm lateral localization, and 19.5 nm axial localization precisions in simulations over a 700 nm depth range using 2500 detected photons. The pixOL microscope accurately and precisely resolves the 3D positions and 3D orientations of Nile red within a spherical supported lipid bilayer, resolving both membrane defects and differences in cholesterol concentration in six dimensions.