Quantum enhanced superresolution microscopy

by Prof. Dan Oron

Dept. Physics Of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute Of Science, Rehovot, Israel
at Physics Colloquium

Tue, 10 Dec 2019, 15:30
Building 54, room 207 - Physics, Seminar room

Abstract

Far-field optical microscopy beyond the Abbe diffraction limit, making use of nonlinear excitation (e.g. STED), or temporal fluctuations in fluorescence (PALM, STORM, SOFI) is already a reality. In contrast, while classicality is an implicit assumption in the derivation of the diffraction limit, overcoming the diffraction limit using non-classical properties of light is very difficult to achieve due to the requirement of nonlinearity and the fragility of quantum states of light. Here, we experimentally demonstrate superresolution microscopy based on quantum properties of light naturally emitted by fluorophores used as markers in fluorescence microscopy. The approach is based on photon antibunching, the tendency of fluorophores to emit photons one by one rather than in bursts. Although a distinctively quantum phenomenon, antibunching is readily observed in most common fluorophores even at room temperature.
This nonclassical resource can be utilized directly to enhance the imaging resolution, since the non-classical far-field intensity correlations induced by antibunching carry high spatial frequency information on the spatial distribution of emitters1. Detecting photon statistics simultaneously in the entire field of view, we were able to detect non-classical correlations of the second and third order, and reconstructed images with resolution significantly beyond the diffraction limit.
Alternatively, we demonstrate the utilization of antibunching for augmenting the capabilities of other commonly used superresolution techniques, such as localization-based superresolution imaging2 or image-scanning confocal microscopy3. For this end, we use either a novel detector comprised of an array of single photon detectors connected to a densely packed fiber bundle, acting as a low-noise single photon sensitive camera, and enabling the measurement of photon correlations, or recently developed monolithic single photon sensitive APD arrays4.
Finally, new modalities for harnessing quantum photon statistics for super-resolved imaging will be discussed5.

References
[1] O. Schwartz, et al., “Superresolution microscopy with quantum emitters,” Nano letters, 13, 5832–5836 (2013).
[2] Y. Israel et al., “Quantum correlation enhanced super-resolution localization microscopy enabled by a fiber bundle camera”, Nat. Commun. 8, 14786 (2017)
[3] R. Tenne et al., “Super-resolution enhancement by quantum image scanning microscopy”, Nature Photonics 13, 116 (2019).
[4] G. Lubin et al., “Quantum correlation measurement with single photon avalanche diode arrays”, Optics Express 27, 32863 (2019).
[5] U. Rossman et al., “Rapid quantum image scanning microscopy by joint sparse reconstruction”, Optica 6, 1290 (2019).

Created on 07-11-2019 by Bar, Ilana (ibar)
Updaded on 09-12-2019 by Bar, Ilana (ibar)