Super-Resolution Microscopy
Super-Resolution Microscopy: Background and Nanopositioning Solutions
Products and resources for super-resolution microscopy, including piezo stages, nanopositioning systems, focusing devices, STED, STORM, 4Pi, RESOLFT, and TIRFM.
Background
Super-resolution (SR) microscopy emerged from the need to overcome the diffraction limit described by Ernst Abbe in the late 19th century, which restricted optical resolution to about 200 nm. For decades, this limit defined what could be observed with light microscopy. In the late 20th century, advances in lasers, detectors, and fluorescent labeling opened new possibilities. A major breakthrough came in the 1990s with STED microscopy, developed by Stefan Hell, which used patterned light to selectively switch off fluorescence and shrink the effective focal spot.
In the 2000s, single-molecule localization techniques such as PALM and STORM enabled reconstruction of images with nanometer precision by localizing individual fluorescent emitters. These methods transformed biological imaging, allowing researchers to visualize proteins and molecular structures at unprecedented resolution.
The significance of these innovations was recognized with the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Today, SR microscopy includes techniques such as STED, PALM, STORM, and SIM, and continues to evolve through advances in photonics, computation, fluorescence labeling, and precision positioning technologies.
- These Super-Resolution Microscopes Are Revealing the Inner Lives of Cells
- Subnanometre single-molecule localization, registration and distance measurements
- Optical Microscopy
- Super-resolution Microscopy Takes On Third Dimension
- Super-Resolution Optical Microscopy, Nanoscopy, and Nanopositioning Motion Control
- Steven Block Lab at Stanford University
- Super Resolution Imaging
- A compact STED microscope providing 3D nanoscale resolution
- Bustamante Lab - University of California, Berkeley
- Design Considerations for Micro- and Nanopositioning: Leveraging the Latest for Biophysical Applications
- Most Powerful Optical Microscope in the World at Manchester University?
- Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell, and William E. Moerner: Nobel Prize for super-resolution techniques
Products for Super Resolution Microscopy:
Piezo Stages, Nano-Positioning / Focusing Systems
Super resolution microscopy (nanoscopy) refers to optical techniques that go beyond the diffraction limit. STED (stimulated emission depletion), STORM (stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy) are some of the latest, most promising techniques. Super resolution microscopes are very often used as tools for bio-research looking at proteins and biomolecules; they achieve resolution down to the 10 nanometer scale.
Most super-resolution microscopes incorporate some kind of piezoelectric precision positioning device for scanning or focussing. Other ultra-high resolution optical microscopy techniques are known as 4Pi Microscopy, RESOLFT, TIRFM, Structured Illumination, confocal, SPEM, and PALM. PI offers nanopositioning piezo stages for SR-Microscopy applications.
More Information
- Catalog: Super Resolution Piezo Stages
- PI Products for Microscopy / Imaging
- Catalog: Planar Piezo Scanners for AFM
- Pico-Resolution XYZ Piezo Stage for Quantitative Measurement of Protein Dynamics with High Linearity Atomic Force Spectrometer
- Microscope Lens Nanopositioning Devices for Super-Resolution Microscopy
- Article: Software and Microscopy: The Imaging Suite is the Microscope
- Nanopositioning Stages & Positioners for NanoMechatronics
- Raman Imaging and AFM Microscopy with Piezo-Flexure Based Nanopositioning Stages
- Video Link: Stefan Hell on nanometer-scale microscopy in biophotonics
- SR-Microscope Stages Upgraded with Capacitive Feedback for Higher Stability
- U.S. Secretary of Energy Chu leads development of superresolution technique