The key information about any nanoscale system relates to the orientations and conformations of its parts. Unfortunately, these details are often hidden below the diffraction limit, and elaborate techniques must be used to optically probe them. Here we present imaging of the 3D rotation motion of metal nanorods, restoring the distinct nanorod orientations in the full extent of azimuthal and polar angles. The nanorods imprint their 3D orientation onto the geometric phase and space-variant polarization of the light they scatter. We manipulate the light angular momentum and generate optical vortices that create self-interference images providing the nanorods' angles via digital processing. After calibration by scanning electron microscopy, we demonstrated time-resolved 3D orientation imaging of sub-100 nm nanorods under Brownian motion (frame rate up to 500 fps). We also succeeded in imaging nanorods as nanoprobes in live-cell imaging and reconstructed their 3D rotational movement during interaction with the cell membrane (100 fps).

Central European Institute of Technology Brno University of Technology Purkyňova 656 123 612 00 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Optics Palacký University 17 listopadu 1192 12 771 46 Olomouc Czech Republic

Institute of Physical Engineering Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Brno University of Technology Technická 2 616 69 Brno Czech Republic

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