Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Nonlinear optics

Defying Abbe's law

By using propagation in a nonlinear medium, several spatial modes and photons can be simultaneously interacted spatially. This enables the conventional laws of imaging, which are based on linear propagation theory, to be bent.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Illustration showing that the diffraction-related resolution limit is basically a signal-to-noise-ratio limitation.

References

  1. Abbe, E. Archiv für Mikroskopische Anatomie 9, 413–418 (1873).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Zalevsky, Z. & Mendlovic, D. Optical Superresolution (Springer, 2004).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  3. Gur, A., Fixler, D., Micó, V., Garcia, J. & Zalevsky, Z. Opt. Express 18, 22222–22231 (2010).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Betzig, E., Lewis, A., Harootunian, A., Isaacson, M. & Kratschmer, E. Biophys. J. 49, 269–279 (1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Mudry, E. et al. Nature Photon. 6, 312–315 (2012).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Bailey, B., Farkas, D. L., Taylor, D. L. & Lanni, F. Nature 366, 44–48 (1993).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Schmidt, R. et al. Nat. Methods 5, 539–544 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Betzig, E. et al. Science 313, 1642–1645 (2006).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Barsi, C. & Fleischer, J. W. Nature Photon. 7, 639–643 (2013).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zeev Zalevsky.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zalevsky, Z. Defying Abbe's law. Nature Photon 7, 593–594 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.211

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.211

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing