{"id":230139,"date":"2026-01-30T01:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/refractive-index-microscope-measures-a-samples-optical-properties-with-pinpoint-accuracy"},"modified":"2026-01-30T01:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:21:07","slug":"refractive-index-microscope-measures-a-samples-optical-properties-with-pinpoint-accuracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/refractive-index-microscope-measures-a-samples-optical-properties-with-pinpoint-accuracy","title":{"rendered":"Refractive-index microscope measures a sample\u2019s optical properties with pinpoint accuracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/refractive-index-microscope-measures-a-samples-optical-properties-with-pinpoint-accuracy2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this way, and almost by chance, researchers at TU Wien developed a novel microscopy technique that allows the refractive index of biological samples to be measured at a resolution far below what conventional light microscopy theory would seem to allow. Their paper is <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/acsnano.5c17647\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal ACS Nano.<\/p>\n<p><b>The trick behind resolution beyond the wavelength of light<\/b><\/p>\n<p>What happens if you try to image two molecules whose separation is smaller than the wavelength of light? You will not see two distinct points, but a single blurred spot of light\u2014the images of the two molecules overlap, no matter how precise the microscope is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this way, and almost by chance, researchers at TU Wien developed a novel microscopy technique that allows the refractive index of biological samples to be measured at a resolution far below what conventional light microscopy theory would seem to allow. Their paper is published in the journal ACS Nano. The trick behind resolution beyond [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230139","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=230139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}