Phase-sensitive detection of dipole radiation in a fiber-based high numerical aperture optical system.

We theoretically study the problem of detecting dipole radiation in a fiber-based confocal microscope of high numerical aperture. By using a single-mode fiber, in contrast to a hard-stop pinhole aperture, the detector becomes sensitive to the phase of the field amplitude. We find that the maximum in collection efficiency of the dipole radiation does not coincide with the optimum resolution for the light-gathering instrument. The derived expressions are important for analyzing fiber-based confocal microscope performance in fluorescence and spectroscopic studies of single molecules and/or quantum dots.