title: Performance limits on three-dimensional particle localization in photon-limited microscopy.
abstract: We present the performance limits on three-dimensional (3D) localization accuracy of currently used methods of wide-field superlocalization microscopy. The three methods investigated are double-helix microscopy, astigmatic imaging, and biplane detection. In the shot-noise limit, Cramer-Rao lower bound calculations show that, among these techniques, the double-helix microscope exhibits the best axial and 3D localization accuracy over short as well as long depth-of-field systems. The fundamental advantage of engineered point-spread function systems, like the double-helix, stems from the additional degrees of freedom available to control diffraction in three dimensions over variable regions of interest.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA. ginni.sharma@colorado.edu
authors.forename: Ginni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Grover
authors.forename: Sri Rama Prasanna
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Pavani
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Piestun
mesh_terms: D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D017785:Photons