The Progress of Optical Nanoscopy

The Abbe limit of optical imaging system is well known, it limits the resolution of optical microscope to about 200nm in the visible region. How to break down this limit is the dream of optical researchers. The 2014 Nobel Chemistry Price has gone to three scientists who developed new techniques to get super-resolution microscopes, with resolution better than 50nm in the visibe region, which means we are entering a new imaging age —–the optical nanoscope age.

In the talk, after reviewing the progress of different nanoscopies in the last decade, we shall focus on the new development of nanoscopy methods developed in Zhejiang Univeristy, the fluorescence emission difference (FED) technqiue and the surface spatial frequency shift (SSFS) technqiue. The principle and the experimental results of these technqiues will be presented. The experimental resluts show that FED technique can be used in different imaging techniques including Fluorescence and non fluorescence sample imaging, and can improve the corresponding technqiue's resolution. SSFS is an new concept and and an effective superresolution technique. It offers us a possible way to get no-limit resolution, and can be used for non-stained sample imaging.
Professor Xu Liu obtained his BS. and MS. Degree from Zhejiang University in 1984 and 1986 respectively. He had his Ph.D. from Ecole nationale superieure de physique de Marseille in France in 1990. He has been a professor in the Department of optical engineering of Zhejiang University since 1995. Currently, he is the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation in China, and vice president of Chinese Optical Society.
His research fields are: Thin film optics and coatings techniques, projection display and 3D display, Optical imaging and Instrumentation. He is the author and co-author of more than 200 journal papers in these fields.