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I've been trying to measure a PSF for fluorescent labels embedded in
epoxy resin which has a refractive index of about 1.48.  Spurr's epoxy
dissolves latex and polystyrene beads even better than does xylene
based mounting media.  Last week I dried down some quantum dots and
stirred them into Spurr's epoxy, then poured  into molds or
coverslipped on slides.  Have only had a brief chance to work with
them, but it looks promising. also stirred some into DPX and mounted on
several slides with different thicknesses of coverglass.


Regards,
Glen

>
> To actually measure the spot size, as I said before, sub-resolution
> fluorescent objects are the best way to go and it's just occurred
> to me that quantum dots should be even better than beads (smaller,
> don't bleach, don't vaporise).  Has anyone tried them?  I guess
> you'd have to stick them down pretty well to avoid Brownian motion
> and or laser-tweezing by the beam.
>
>                                                 Guy