A new imaging technique allows scientists to capture fleeting cellular processes that conventional microscopes struggle to resolve.

Living cells are constantly in motion, but capturing their smallest structures in sharp detail has long been a challenge. Traditional super-resolution microscopy often requires hundreds or thousands of images to reveal features too small for conventional light microscopes. When structures move during that process, the resulting images can become blurred. Now, researchers have developed a technique that captures these microscopic details in a single camera exposure.

The new method, called Spatial Polarization-Induced Fluorescence Fluctuation Imaging (SPIFFI), was developed by a team led by Aleksandra Radenovic at the Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology (LBEN) in EPFL’s School of Engineering. Published in Nature Methods, the research demonstrates up to a twofold improvement in image resolution, allowing scientists to distinguish structures as small as 160 to 170 nanometers while observing living cells.