Resolution enhancement in nonlinear scanning microscopy through post-detection digital computation

Abstract

In the last decade, the resolution of optical microscopy has been doubled thanks to linear structured illumination. The resolution has been further improved by combining structured illumination with nonlinear photoresponse. Recently, structured illumination has been combined with point-scanning microscopy. In this paper, we investigate whether, as in wide field acquisition, significant resolution enhancement can be obtained by harnessing the nonlinear response of the sample when point-scanning structured illumination is employed. We compare point scanning with wide field structured illumination microscopy in terms of signal-to-noise ratio. We conclude that superresolution using saturated point-scanning structured illumination is severely restricted to the first nonlinear orders. We identify possibilities for how different beam shapes or nonlinear phenomena might be envisaged for future implementations.