Exploiting speckle correlations to improve the resolution of wide-field fluorescence microscopy

TL;DR

This paper presents SCORE, a novel microscopy technique that enhances resolution beyond the diffraction limit by exploiting speckle correlations in fluorescence imaging, achieving 130 nm resolution over a wide field.

Contribution

The paper introduces SCORE, a new method combining high-resolution and wide-field fluorescence microscopy using speckle correlations to surpass traditional resolution limits.

Findings

Achieved 130 nm resolution in fluorescence imaging.

Demonstrated effective resolution enhancement over 10x10 μm field.

Validated method with dye-doped nanospheres.

Abstract

Fluorescence microscopy is indispensable in nanoscience and biological sciences. The versatility of labeling target structures with fluorescent dyes permits to visualize structure and function at a subcellular resolution with a wide field of view. Due to the diffraction limit, conventional optical microscopes are limited to resolving structures larger than 200 nm. The resolution can be enhanced by near-field and far-field super-resolution microscopy methods. Near-field methods typically have a limited field of view and far-field methods are limited by the involved conventional optics. Here, we introduce a combined high-resolution and wide-field fluorescence microscopy method that improves the resolution of a conventional optical microscope by exploiting correlations in speckle illumination through a randomly scattering high-index medium: Speckle correlation resolution enhancement (SCORE). As a test, we collect two-dimensional fluorescence images of 100-nm diameter dye-doped nanospheres. We demonstrate a deconvolved resolution of 130 nm with a field of view of 10 x 10 $\text{\mu m}^2$.