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Parallel super-resolution imaging

Nature Methods volume 10, pages 709–710 (2013)Cite this article

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Massive parallelization of scanning-based super-resolution imaging allows fast imaging of large fields of view.

Ever since Ernst Abbe formulated the theory of diffraction in optical imaging, resolution has been thought to be restricted to approximately half the wavelength of light: the diffraction limit. Much work has been done to circumvent this limit; early work involved methods such as structured light illumination, first pioneered by Lukosz and Marchand1 and subsequently popularized by the late Gustafsson2. More recent developments such as stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy3, photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM)4, stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM)5, reversible saturable optical fluorescence transitions (RESOLFT)6 and their variants have made great progress in bringing optical imaging to the 10-nm scale, but fast imaging of large fields of view using these techniques has been an elusive goal. In this issue, Chmyrov et al.7 present a novel parallelized RESOLFT approach that promises to eliminate the speed bottleneck in super-resolution imaging at these scales.

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Figure 1: Parallelized RESOLFT imaging uses ∼110,000 donuts to scan a sample.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Christopher J. Rowlands and Peter T.C. So are in the Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Christopher J Rowlands & Peter T C So

  2. Elijah Y.S. Yew and Peter T.C. So are at SMART-BioSyM, Singapore.,

    Elijah Y S Yew & Peter T C So

  3. Peter T.C. So is at the Laser Biomedical Research Center and in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Peter T C So

Authors
  1. Christopher J Rowlands
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  2. Elijah Y S Yew
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  3. Peter T C So
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter T C So.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Rowlands, C., Yew, E. & So, P. Parallel super-resolution imaging. Nat Methods 10, 709–710 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2567

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