Photonics.com

Sometimes when many groups agree to look at a problem through the same lens, it can make all the difference. So when researchers in EU’s ChipScope project worked together to develop an innovative optical microscope, they produced exciting results. Until the last decade, light microscopes were held to the Abbe limit, meaning structural features smaller than 200 nm could not be resolved by them. But in the planned ChipScope design, a specimen is placed above a light source consisting of numerous LEDs, and the light propagation is measured by single-photon avalanche detectors. The sample is moved by nanopositioners and microfluidics. Superresolution then becomes more available than ever before. Angel Dieguez Barrientos, an...