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Optical nanoscopy with excited state saturation at liquid helium temperatures

Nature Photonics volume 9, pages 658–662 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Optical resolution of solid-state single quantum emitters at the nanometre scale is a challenging step towards the control of delocalized states formed by strongly and coherently interacting emitters1. We have developed a simple super-resolution optical microscopy method operating at cryogenic temperatures, which is based on optical saturation of the excited state of single fluorescent molecules with a doughnut-shaped beam. Sub-10 nm resolution is achieved with extremely low excitation intensities, a million times lower than those used in room-temperature stimulated emission depletion microscopy2. Compared with super-localization approaches3,4,5,6, our technique offers a unique opportunity to super-resolve single molecules with overlapping optical resonance frequencies and paves the way to the study of coherent interactions between single emitters and to the manipulation of their degree of entanglement7,8.

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Figure 1: Principle of ESSat microscopy.
Figure 2: Experimental set-up of the cryogenic ESSat microscope.
Figure 3: Experimental results of direct ESSat microscopy.
Figure 4: Principle and experimental results of modulated-ESSat microscopy.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from Région Aquitaine, the French Ministry of Education and Research, the Institut Universitaire de France and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France Bio Imaging, grant no. ANR-10-INSB-04-01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Bordeaux, LP2N, Talence, F-33405, France

    B. Yang, J.-B. Trebbia, R. Baby, Ph. Tamarat & B. Lounis

  2. Institut d'Optique & CNRS, LP2N, Talence, F-33405, France

    B. Yang, J.-B. Trebbia, R. Baby, Ph. Tamarat & B. Lounis

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  1. B. Yang
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Contributions

B.Y., J.-B.T. and R.B. performed the experiments. B.Y. and J.-B.T. contributed materials/analysis tools. B.Y., J.-B.T., Ph.T. and B.L. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. B.L. conceived and supervised the project.

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Correspondence to B. Lounis.

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Yang, B., Trebbia, JB., Baby, R. et al. Optical nanoscopy with excited state saturation at liquid helium temperatures. Nature Photon 9, 658–662 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.152

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