The Anti-Brownian ELectrokinetic (ABEL) Trap is a versatile platform for single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy that can be modified to utilize a wide range of advanced single-molecule technique. To date, these efforts have focused largely on modifying either the trapping approach or the detection capabilities, most notably for multi-parameter detection including TCSPC, anisotropy, spectra, and transport parameters, as well as detection of interferometric scattering or high-precision FRET. Here we demonstrate the broad utility of advanced approaches to excitation for the ABEL trap: Using a programmable supercontinuum pulsed laser source, we first demonstrate temporal patterning of excitation brightness and wavelength to study photophysically induced responses in a trapped light-harvesting protein-pigment complex from cyanobacteria. In a second instance, we incorporate a pulse-picking system to achieve pulsed-interleaved excitation (PIE) to enable high-precision and acceptor-corrected FRET measurements of fluorescently labeled biomolecules.
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