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Super-resolution microscopy
Super-resolution microscopy is a series of techniques in optical microscopy that allow such images to have resolutions higher than those imposed by the diffraction limit, which is due to the diffraction of light. Super-resolution imaging techniques rely on the near-field (photon-tunneling microscopy as well as those that use the Pendry Superlens and near field scanning optical microscopy) or on the far-field. Among techniques that rely on the latter are those that improve the resolution only modestly (up to about a factor of two) beyond the diffraction-limit, such as confocal microscopy with closed pinhole or aided by computational methods such as deconvolution or detector-based pixel reassignment (e.g. re-scan microscopy, pixel reassignment), the 4Pi microscope, and structured-illumination microscopy technologies such as SIM and SMI.
There are two major groups of methods for super-resolution microscopy in the far-field that can improve the resolution by a much larger factor:
On 8 October 2014, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Eric Betzig, W.E. Moerner and Stefan Hell for "the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy", which brings "optical microscopy into the nanodimension". The different modalities of super-resolution microscopy are increasingly being adopted by the biomedical research community, and these techniques are becoming indispensable tools to understanding biological function at the molecular level.
By 1978, the first theoretical ideas had been developed to break the Abbe limit, which called for using a 4Pi microscope as a confocal laser-scanning fluorescence microscope where the light is focused from all sides to a common focus that is used to scan the object by 'point-by-point' excitation combined with 'point-by-point' detection. However the publication from 1978 had drawn an improper physical conclusion (i.e. a point-like spot of light) and had completely missed the axial resolution increase as the actual benefit of adding the other side of the solid angle.
Some of the following information was gathered (with permission) from a chemistry blog's review of sub-diffraction microscopy techniques.
In 1986, a super-resolution optical microscope based on stimulated emission was patented by Okhonin.
Photon tunneling microscopy (PTM) is a form of near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) that exploits the phenomenon of photon tunneling to surpass the diffraction limit. PTM involves the use of a sharp optical fiber tip positioned extremely close to the sample surface, typically within a few nanometers. When light is directed through the fiber tip, evanescent waves can tunnel through the gap and interact with the sample, allowing sub-wavelength resolution imaging.
PTM benefits from high spatial resolution due to its sensitivity to the evanescent field at the sample surface. The resolution is mainly determined by the tip geometry and its distance from the sample rather than the wavelength of light. The technique has been applied to biological and solid-state samples, offering insights into surface morphology and optical properties at the nanoscale.
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Super-resolution microscopy
Super-resolution microscopy is a series of techniques in optical microscopy that allow such images to have resolutions higher than those imposed by the diffraction limit, which is due to the diffraction of light. Super-resolution imaging techniques rely on the near-field (photon-tunneling microscopy as well as those that use the Pendry Superlens and near field scanning optical microscopy) or on the far-field. Among techniques that rely on the latter are those that improve the resolution only modestly (up to about a factor of two) beyond the diffraction-limit, such as confocal microscopy with closed pinhole or aided by computational methods such as deconvolution or detector-based pixel reassignment (e.g. re-scan microscopy, pixel reassignment), the 4Pi microscope, and structured-illumination microscopy technologies such as SIM and SMI.
There are two major groups of methods for super-resolution microscopy in the far-field that can improve the resolution by a much larger factor:
On 8 October 2014, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Eric Betzig, W.E. Moerner and Stefan Hell for "the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy", which brings "optical microscopy into the nanodimension". The different modalities of super-resolution microscopy are increasingly being adopted by the biomedical research community, and these techniques are becoming indispensable tools to understanding biological function at the molecular level.
By 1978, the first theoretical ideas had been developed to break the Abbe limit, which called for using a 4Pi microscope as a confocal laser-scanning fluorescence microscope where the light is focused from all sides to a common focus that is used to scan the object by 'point-by-point' excitation combined with 'point-by-point' detection. However the publication from 1978 had drawn an improper physical conclusion (i.e. a point-like spot of light) and had completely missed the axial resolution increase as the actual benefit of adding the other side of the solid angle.
Some of the following information was gathered (with permission) from a chemistry blog's review of sub-diffraction microscopy techniques.
In 1986, a super-resolution optical microscope based on stimulated emission was patented by Okhonin.
Photon tunneling microscopy (PTM) is a form of near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) that exploits the phenomenon of photon tunneling to surpass the diffraction limit. PTM involves the use of a sharp optical fiber tip positioned extremely close to the sample surface, typically within a few nanometers. When light is directed through the fiber tip, evanescent waves can tunnel through the gap and interact with the sample, allowing sub-wavelength resolution imaging.
PTM benefits from high spatial resolution due to its sensitivity to the evanescent field at the sample surface. The resolution is mainly determined by the tip geometry and its distance from the sample rather than the wavelength of light. The technique has been applied to biological and solid-state samples, offering insights into surface morphology and optical properties at the nanoscale.