Invited Article: Saturation scattering competition for non-fluorescence single-wavelength super-resolution imaging

Abstract

Stimulated emission depletion nanoscopy and its derivatives based on saturation induced competition effects have become an indispensable tool for studying cellular events and their dynamics in living conditions. The successful implementation of these techniques heavily relies on the competition between excitation induced spontaneous emission and stimulated emission from fluorescent dyes. The use of two laser beams at different wavelengths perplexes the optical system and the high intensity saturation beam inevitably introduces detrimental photobleaching effects. Harnessing the emerging saturation scattering of plasmonic nanoparticles, here, we demonstrate a novel fluorescence-free single-wavelength super-resolution imaging technique using gold nanoparticles. A lateral resolution of 101.2 nm (