The team led by Prof. ZHANG Delong at the Zhejiang University School of Physics developed a label-free super-resolution approach—photothermal relaxation localization (PEARL) microscopy—on the strength of “extracting spatial features from the frequency domain.” PEARL microscopy can extract sub-diffraction-limit features directly from the location-dependent modulation of the probe beam in photothermal microscopy. As a result, it does not have to rely on fluorescent labels to break the limit of optical diffraction to reach 120 nm resolution.

    The relevant findings were published in an article titled “Super-Resolution Imaging of Non-fluorescent Molecules by Photothermal Relaxation Localization Microscopy” in the journal Nature Photonics on January 23.

Source: Global Communications