Ultrahigh-contrast imaging by temporally modulated stimulated emission depletion.
Stimulated emission depletion (STED) is the key optical technology enabling super-resolution microscopy below the diffraction limit. Here, we demonstrate that modulation of STED in the time domain, combined with properly designed lock-in detection, can radically enhance the contrast of fluorescent images of strongly autofluorescent biotissues. In our experiments, the temporally modulated STED technique, implemented with low-intensity continuous-wave laser sources, is shown to provide an efficient all-optical suppression of a broadband fluorescent background, allowing the contrast of fluorescent images of mammal brain tissues tagged with nitrogen-vacancy diamond to be increased by five orders of magnitude.
L V
LV
Doronina-Amitonova
I V
IV
Fedotov
A M
AM
Zheltikov
D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology; D018130:Diamond / Q000737:chemistry; D051379:Mice; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D008863:Microspheres; D053758:Nanoparticles; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000737:chemistry; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013997:Time Factors
D018130:Diamond; D009584:Nitrogen