Nanoscopy on-a-chip: super-resolution imaging on the millimeter scale.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Optics
• Nanotechnology
• Microscopy

Background:

• Optical nanoscopy bridges resolution gaps between optical and electron microscopy.
• Conventional nanoscopy has limitations in high-throughput data generation due to small imaging regions.
• Existing super-resolution methods offer resolutions of 100 nm or better.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate chip-based nanoscopy with significantly improved resolution and field-of-view.
• To benchmark the performance of chip-based nanoscopy for diagnostic applications.
• To explore the potential of large field-of-view nanoscopy for disease detection.

Main Methods:

• Development of a photonic chip-based nanoscopy system.
• Utilizing a low magnification, high numerical aperture (N.A.) objective lens.
• Benchmarking performance through analysis of localization precision and illumination homogeneity across varying waveguide widths.

Main Results:

• Achieved a lateral resolution of 75 nm.
• Demonstrated imaging over an exceptionally large area of 0.5 mm × 0.5 mm.
• Validated performance metrics for chip-based nanoscopy.

Conclusions:

• Chip-based nanoscopy now offers high resolution over large fields-of-view.
• This advancement opens new diagnostic possibilities requiring high throughput, such as early cancer detection.
• The technology has the potential to revolutionize the detection of rare events and non-diffuse diseases.