Breaking Abbe’s diffraction limit with harmonic deactivation microscopy

Kevin Murzyn*, Maarten L.S. van der Geest, Leo Guery, Zhonghui Nie, Pieter van Essen, Stefan Witte, Peter M. Kraus*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Nonlinear optical microscopy provides elegant means for label-free imaging of biological samples and condensed matter systems. The widespread areas of application could even be increased if resolution was improved, which the famous Abbe diffraction limit now restrains. Super-resolution techniques can break the diffraction limit but most rely on fluorescent labeling. This makes them incompatible with (sub)femtosecond temporal resolution and applications that demand the absence of labeling. Here, we introduce harmonic deactivation microscopy (HADES) for breaking the diffraction limit in nonfluorescent samples. By controlling the harmonic generation process on the quantum level with a second donut-shaped pulse, we confine the third-harmonic generation to three times below the original focus size of a scanning microscope. We demonstrate that resolution improvement by deactivation is more efficient for higher harmonic orders and only limited by the maximum applicable deactivation-pulse fluence. This provides a route toward sub-100-nanometer resolution in a regular nonlinear microscope.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbereadp3056
Pages (from-to)1-8
Number of pages8
JournalScience advances
Volume10
Issue number46
Early online date13 Nov 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Breaking Abbe’s diffraction limit with harmonic deactivation microscopy'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this