A high-sensitivity and high-resolution single-particle fluorescence microscopy technique differentiated between homogeneous and heterogeneous metathesis polymerization catalysis by imaging the location of the early stages of polymerization. By imaging single polymers and single crystals of Grubbs II, polymerization catalysis was revealed to be solely homogeneous rather than heterogeneous or both.

Single-molecule fluorescence microscopy provided information about the real-time distribution of chemical reactivity on silicon oxide supports at the solution-surface interface, at a level of detail which would be unavailable from a traditional ensemble technique or from a technique that imaged the static physical properties of the surface. Chemical reactions on the surface were found to be uncorrelated; that is, the chemical reaction of one metal complex did not influence the location of a future chemical reaction of another metal complex.

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