{"id":207410,"date":"2025-02-28T03:16:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T09:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/super-resolution-microscopy-achieves-nanometer-resolution-without-traditional-on-off-switching"},"modified":"2025-02-28T03:16:20","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T09:16:20","slug":"super-resolution-microscopy-achieves-nanometer-resolution-without-traditional-on-off-switching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/super-resolution-microscopy-achieves-nanometer-resolution-without-traditional-on-off-switching","title":{"rendered":"Super-resolution microscopy achieves nanometer resolution without traditional ON\/OFF switching"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/super-resolution-microscopy-achieves-nanometer-resolution-without-traditional-on-off-switching.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Overcoming the resolution limit in a light microscope of around half a wavelength of light (about 250 nanometers) is one of the most significant developments in optics. Due to the wave nature of light, even the best lens cannot produce a light spot smaller than 250 nanometers in diameter. All molecules within this bright spot are illuminated at the same time, light up together, and therefore, appear inseparable as a blurred whole.<\/p>\n<p>In the early 1990s, Stefan Hell realized that molecules could be separated by briefly switching the molecular signal \u201cOFF\u201d and \u201cON\u201d in such a way that closely neighboring molecules are forced to signal consecutively. Molecules that signal consecutively can be readily distinguished.<\/p>\n<p>In fluorescence microscopy, this ON\/OFF separation principle could be implemented to perfection, since molecular fluorescence can be easily switched on and off. In fact, STED and PALM\/STORM, as well as the more recent super-resolution fluorescence microscopes, are all based on this ON\/OFF principle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overcoming the resolution limit in a light microscope of around half a wavelength of light (about 250 nanometers) is one of the most significant developments in optics. Due to the wave nature of light, even the best lens cannot produce a light spot smaller than 250 nanometers in diameter. All molecules within this bright spot [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}