title: STED microscopy--super-resolution bio-imaging utilizing a stimulated emission depletion.
abstract: One of the most popular super-resolution microscopies that breaks the diffraction barrier is stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy. As the optical set-up of STED microscopy is based on a laser scanning microscopy (LSM) system, it potentially has several merits of LSM like confocal or two-photon excitation LSM. In this article, we first describe the principles of STED microscopy and then describe the features of our newly developed two-photon excitation STED microscopy. On the basis of our recent results and those of other researchers, we conclude by discussing future research and new technologies in this field.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 20 Nishi 10, Kita, Sapporo 001-0020, Japan.
authors.forename: Kohei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Otomo
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 20 Nishi 10, Kita, Sapporo 001-0020, Japan Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Kita 14 Nishi 9, Kita, Sapporo 060-0814, Japan.
authors.forename: Terumasa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hibi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Katahira 2-1-1, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kozawa
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 20 Nishi 10, Kita, Sapporo 001-0020, Japan Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Kita 14 Nishi 9, Kita, Sapporo 060-0814, Japan tn@es.hokudai.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Tomomi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nemoto
keywords: liquid crystal devices; optical vortex; two-photon microscopy