Laser spectroscopic technique for direct identification of a single virus I: FASTER CARS
Volker Deckert, Tanja Deckert‐Gaudig, Dana Cialla‐May, Jürgen Popp, Roland Zell, Stefanie Deinhardt‐Emmer, Alexei V. Sokolov, Zhenhuan Yi, Marlan O. Scully
Abstract
Significance Surface features of a virus are very important in determining its virility. For example, the spike protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) binds to the ACE2 receptor site of the host cell with a much stronger affinity than did the original SARS virus. Thus, it is clearly important to understand the virion surface structure. To that end, the present paper combines the spatial resolution of atomic force microscopy and the spectral resolution of coherent Raman spectroscopy. This combination of tip-enhanced microscopy using femtosecond adaptive spectroscopic techniques for coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (FAST CARS) with enhanced resolution (FASTER CARS) allows us to map a single virus particle with nanometer resolution and chemical specificity.