TIRF microscopy provides extremely high axial resolution by exciting the fluorophores with an evanescent field (caused when the illuminating laser reflects off the glass/water or glass/sample interface) rather than a lamp or laser. This evanescent field only penetrates 50-150 nm into the sample providing extremely high signal to noise, as those fluorophores found further than this from the interface are not excited.

Abbelight TIRF + SM technical specifications (PDF, 160kB)

Recent papers:

• Lu, Veler, Simonetti, Raj, Chou, Cross, Phillips, Ruan, Huynh, Dowsey, Ye, Murphy, Verkade, Cullen, Wülfing (2023) Five inhibitory receptors display distinct vesicular distributions in murine T cells. Cells 12(21):2558<
• Ding, Kuzmuk, Hunter, Lay, Hayes, Beesley, Rollason, Hurcombe, Barrington, Masson, Cathery, May, Tuffin, Roberts, Mollet, Chu, Mcintosh, Coward, Antignac, Nathwani, Welsh, Saleem (2023) Adeno-associated virus gene therapy prevents progression of kidney disease in genetic models of nephrotic syndrome  Science Translational Medicine DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abc8226 
• Farmer, Rollason, Whitcomb, Ni, Goodliff, Lay, Birnbaumer, Heesom, Xu, Saleem, Welsh (2019) TRP6 binds and activates calpain, independent of its channel activity, and regulates podocyte cytoskeleton, cell adhesion and motility Journal of the American Society of Nephrology ASN.2018070729
• Evans, Gurung, Wilkinson, Stephens, Henley (2017) The assembly, secretory pathway trafficking, and surface delivery of kainate receptors is regulated by neuronal activity. Cell Reports 19: 2613–2626.