Label-free STORM principle realized by super-Rayleigh speckle in photoacoustic imaging

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging can provide information hidden deep inside biological tissues; however, its resolution is limited by acoustic diffraction. It has been demonstrated that the uncontrolled speckle illumination, which is known as blind structured illumination photoacoustic microscopy (BSIPAM), can help surpass this resolution barrier. Although the super-resolution capacity has been verified on both synthesized and experimental data, the achievable theoretical resolution limit by such a system is still unclear. This Letter shows that the principle of Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM) in a PA imaging system can be implemented by the tailored super-Rayleigh speckle; thus, a super-resolution better than a factor of two can be expected.