The precise location and nature of the interactions between specific molecular species in living cells is of major interest in many areas of biological research, but investigations are often hampered by the limited resolution of the instruments employed to examine these phenomena. Conventional widefield fluorescence microscopy enables localisation of fluorescently labeled molecules within the optical spatial resolution limits defined by the Rayleigh criterion, approximately 200 nanometers (0.2 micrometer). However, in order to understand the physical interactions between protein partners involved in a typical biomolecular process, the relative proximity of the molecules must be determined more precisely than diffraction-limited traditional optical imaging methods permit. The technique of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (more commonly referred to by the acronym FRET), when applied to optical microscopy, permits determination of the approach between two molecules within several nanometers, a distance sufficiently close for molecular interactions to occur.