{"id":1371,"date":"2024-10-15T16:51:18","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T16:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novanta.com\/precision-manufacturing\/?post_type=novanta_tech_paper&#038;p=1371"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:56:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:56:39","slug":"superresolution-microscopy-whitepaper","status":"publish","type":"novanta_tech_paper","link":"https:\/\/novanta.com\/precision-manufacturing\/resources\/whitepapers\/superresolution-microscopy-whitepaper\/","title":{"rendered":"Superresolution Microscopy Reaches 14 nm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-technical-paper-overview\">Technical Paper Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-choosing-the-right-laser-source-for-14-nm-gsd-super-resolution-donut-zero-contrast-not-laser-wattage-decides-gsd-s-resolution-floor\"><strong>Choosing the Right Laser Source for 14 nm GSD Super-Resolution<\/strong><br><em>Donut-zero contrast, not laser wattage, decides GSD&#8217;s resolution floor.<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Abbe criterion stops conventional confocal microscopes at roughly half the excitation wavelength \u2014 fine for cells, useless for finding paired NV-centres in diamond a few nanometers apart. Ground State Depletion (GSD) breaks through it by saturating fluorescence with a donut-profile beam. But the achievable resolution scales with how dark the donut minimum actually is. A laser that can&#8217;t hold its TEM\u2080\u2080 mode purity, or whose pointing drifts under increased power, produces a donut bottom that isn&#8217;t truly dark \u2014 and the resolution-versus-power curve flattens out before it should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This technical paper documents a GSD optical layout at Professor Fedor Jelezko&#8217;s University of Ulm group resolving NV-centres to&nbsp;<strong>14 nm FWHM<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014 achieved by scaling the Novanta Laser Quantum gem 532 nm excitation through 8.3, 17.3, 38, and 85 mW while preserving beam purity and pointing stability across the full power range, with the resolution-vs-power curve fitted to the GSD saturation model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-key-takeaways-include\">Key takeaways include:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Why donut beam quality \u2014 not raw laser power \u2014 sets the ultimate resolution floor: a non-zero donut minimum caps resolution before saturation does<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How NV-centre fluorescence saturation flips diffraction-limited imaging into power-scalable super-resolution \u2014 and what laser-source specs survive the scaling<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When to specify a stabilized gem 532 over generic 532 nm sources: applications where the same laser must hit 8 mW and 85 mW while holding beam pointing and mode purity<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What the gem 532 brings to GSD: TEM\u2080\u2080 mode purity, low pointing drift across the full power range, and the long-term stability that makes the resolution-vs-power calibration trustworthy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A practical forward-looking note: NV-centre super-resolution sits at the intersection of quantum information processing (coupled qubits) and biology (proteins on nano-diamonds) \u2014 two growth markets the same laser serves<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" id=\"h-\">Download the full technical paper for the GSD optical layout diagram from the University of Ulm group, the four-power image series showing the dark-spot collapse from confocal-limited to 14 nm, and the resolution-versus-power fit \u2014 before specifying a 532 nm source on average-power spec alone and discovering at 85 mW that beam quality, not laser power, is what&#8217;s capping your resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Technical Paper Overview Choosing the Right Laser Source for 14 nm GSD Super-ResolutionDonut-zero contrast, not laser wattage, decides GSD&#8217;s resolution floor. The Abbe criterion stops conventional confocal microscopes at roughly half the excitation wavelength \u2014 fine for cells, useless for finding paired NV-centres in diamond a few nanometers apart. Ground State Depletion (GSD) breaks through [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":342,"featured_media":1144,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"card_thumbnail_id":0,"show_table_of_content":true},"class_list":["post-1371","novanta_tech_paper","type-novanta_tech_paper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.0 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Superresolution Microscopy | Novanta Laser Solutions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how a confocal microscopy laser setup enables superresolution microscopy, pushing past the diffraction limit for biomedical imaging laser research.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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