Microscopy Method Resolves Fluorescence at Nanometer Scale

Researchers led by Stefan Hell at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry and the Heidelberg-based MPI for Medical Research have developed a light microscopy method, MINSTED, that is able to resolve fluorescently labeled details with molecular sharpness. The technique derives from STED microscopy, also developed by Hell, for which he received the 2014 Nobel Prize in chemistry. That method was able to achieve a resolution of 20 to 30 nm, approximately 10× sharper than the light microscopes available at the time. “A good 20 years ago, we fundamentally broke the diffraction resolution limit of fluorescence microscopy with STED; until then that was considered impossible,” Hell said. “Back then we...