Dual-color STED super-resolution microscope using a single laser source

STED (stimulated emission depletion) microscopy is one of the most promising super-resolution fluorescence microscopies，due to its fast imaging and ultra-high resolution. In this paper, we present a dual-color STED microscope with a single laser source. Polarization beam splitters are used to separate the output from a supercontinuum laser source into four laser beams, including two excitation beams (488, 635 nm) and two depletion beams (592, 775 nm). These four laser beams are then used to build a low cost dual-color STED system to achieve a spatial resolution of 75 nm in cell samples.