Disclosed in the present invention are a
prism-type
total internal reflection imaging apparatus compatible with a commercial
inverted microscope, and a method for using same. The method comprises the following steps: first injecting a sample into a sample
cell; turning on a
laser, and generated evanescent
waves illuminating nearby fluorescent molecules to obtain an image; and
processing the image to obtain the three-dimensional positions of all the fluorescent molecules in a visual field, obtaining the three-dimensional trajectories of the fluorescent molecules, calculating a
mean square end-to-end distance and a
diffusion factor of the trajectories, and obtaining a relative
potential energy distribution curve on the basis of the relative positions of the molecules. The present invention can be compatible with a mainstream commercial
inverted microscope, and does not need to carry out any refit on existing microscopes. A sample stage is mounted on the
inverted microscope and an excitation light path module is mounted on the side edge of the sample stage, so that a
total internal reflection light path having a specific
wavelength can be generated. The apparatus can achieve single molecule positioning and three-dimensional tracking with a high
signal-to-
noise ratio, and the sample
cell can be flexibly replaced before each test without influencing the
total internal reflection light path. The apparatus is applied to the fields of life science,
material analysis and the like.