Speakers
Description
The real-time tracking of single particles is a vastly under-developed experimental technique but it offers great potential in understanding molecular dynamics. A suitable tracking system comprises three key components, viz., a position sensor, a control system, and an output actuator. The position sensor enables accurate prediction of the particle location. For this component, various tracking methods often employ an estimator of which the scanning pattern is a crucial part. A laser beam is generally scanned in a fixed pattern whilst the photons emitted by the tracked particles are captured and the corresponding photon counts and position coordinates are used to predict the particle location. This process is repeated until some form of termination condition is met. The choice of fixed pattern plays a significant role in the accuracy of the estimator and hence the tracking capabilities of the set-up. In this presentation, we will show how different patterns and detection strategies can be employed in conjunction with accurate two-dimensional single-particle tracking (SPT) simulations of emitting and non-emitting particles to identify an optimal combination. Fluorescence and interferometric scattering (iSCAT) are simulated to represent emitting and non-emitting particles respectively. The performance of each configuration is evaluated using some statistical metrics (e.g., average tracking error) before implementing them in an experimental real-time feedback-driven SPT set-up for single particle studies