No Arabic abstract
Inspired by the capability of structured illumination microscopy in subwavelength imaging, many researchers devoted themselves to investigating this methodology. However, due to the free propagating feature of the traditional structured illumination fields, the resolution can be only improved up to double times compared with the diffractied limited microscopy. Besides, most of the previous studies, relying on incoherent illumination sources, are restricted to fluorescent samples. In this work, a subwavelength nonfluorescent imaging method is proposed based on the terahertz traveling wave and plasmonics illumination. Excited along with a metal grating, the spoof surface plasmons are employed as the plasmonics illumination. When the scattering waves with the SSPs illumination are captured, the high order spatial frequency components of the sample are already encoded into the obtainable low order ones. Then, an algorithm is summarized to shift the modulated SF components to their actual positions in the Fourier domain. In this manner, high order SF components carrying the fine information are introduced to reconstruct the desired imaging, leading to an improvement of the resolution up to 0.12 lambda. Encouragingly, the resolution can be further enhanced by tuning the working frequency of the SSPs. This method holds promise for some important applications in terahertz nonfluorescent microscopy and sample detection with weak scattering.
Terahertz subwavelength imaging aims at developing THz microscopes able to resolve deeply subwavelength features. To improve the spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit, a current trend is to use various subwavelength probes to convert the near-field to the far-field. These techniques, while offering significant gains in spatial resolution, inherently lack the ability to rapidly obtain THz images due to the necessity of slow pixel-by-pixel raster scan and often suffer from low light throughput. In parallel, in the visible spectral range, several super-resolution imaging techniques were developed that enhance the image resolution by recording and statistically correlating multiple images of an object backlit with light from stochastically blinking fluorophores. Inspired by this methodology, we develop a Super-resolution Orthogonal Deterministic Imaging (SODI) technique and apply it in the THz range. Since there are no natural THz fluorophores, we use optimally designed mask sets brought in proximity with the object as artificial fluorophores. Because we directly control the form of the masks, rather than relying on statistical averages, we aim at employing the smallest possible number of frames. After developing the theoretical basis of SODI, we demonstrate the second-order resolution improvement experimentally using phase masks and binary amplitude masks with only 8 frames. We then numerically show how to extend the SODI technique to higher orders to further improve the resolution. As our formulation is based on the equation of linear imaging and it uses spatial modulation of either the phase or the amplitude of the THz wave, our methodology can be readily adapted for the use with existing phase-sensitive single pixel imaging systems or any amplitude sensitive THz imaging arrays.
Video-rate super-resolution imaging through biological tissue can visualize and track biomolecule interplays and transportations inside cellular organisms. Structured illumination microscopy allows for wide-field super resolution observation of biological samples but is limited by the strong absorption and scattering of light by biological tissues, which degrades its imaging resolution. Here we report a photon upconversion scheme using lanthanide-doped nanoparticles for wide-field super-resolution imaging through the biological transparent window, featured by near-infrared and low-irradiance nonlinear structured illumination. We demonstrate that the 976 nm excitation and 800 nm up-converted emission can mitigate the aberration. We found that the nonlinear response of upconversion emissions from single nanoparticles can effectively generate the required high spatial frequency components in Fourier domain. These strategies lead to a new modality in microscopy with a resolution of 130 nm, 1/7th of the excitation wavelength, and a frame rate of 1 fps.
Light propagates symmetrically in opposite directions in most materials and structures. This fact -- a consequence of the Lorentz reciprocity principle -- has tremendous implications for science and technology across the electromagnetic spectrum. Here, we investigate an emerging approach to break reciprocity that does not rely on magneto-optical effects or spacetime modulations, but is instead based on biasing a plasmonic material with a direct electric current. Using a 3D Green function formalism and microscopic considerations, we elucidate the propagation properties of surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) supported by a generic nonreciprocal platform of this type, revealing some previously overlooked, anomalous, wave-propagation effects. We show that SPPs can propagate in the form of steerable, slow-light, unidirectional beams associated with inflexion points in the modal dispersion. We also clarify the impact of dissipation (due to collisions and Landau damping) on nonreciprocal effects and shed light on the connections between inflexion points, exceptional points at band edges, and modal transitions in leaky-wave structures. We then apply these concepts to the important area of thermal photonics, and provide the first theoretical demonstration of drift-induced nonreciprocal radiative heat transfer between two planar bodies. Our findings may open new opportunities toward the development of nonreciprocal magnet-free devices that combine the benefits of plasmonics and nonreciprocal photonics for wave-guiding and energy applications.
We report a line scanning imaging modality of compressive Raman technology with spatial frequency modulated illumination using a single pixel detector. We demonstrate the imaging and classification of three different chemical species at line scan rates of 40 Hz.
Localization of single fluorescent molecules is key for physicochemical and biophysical measurements such as single-molecule tracking and super-resolution imaging by single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM). Recently a series of methods have been developed in which the localization precision is enhanced by interrogating the molecular position with a sequence of spatially modulated patterns of light. Among them, the MINFLUX technique outstands for achieving a ~10-fold improvement compared to wide-field camera-based single-molecule localization, reaching ~1-2 nm localization precision at moderate photon counts. Here, we present a common mathematical framework for this type of measurement that allows a fair comparison between reported methods and facilitates the design and evaluation of new methods. With it, we benchmark all reported methods for single-molecule localization using sequential structured illumination, including long-established methods such as orbital tracking, along with two new proposed methods: orbital tracking and raster scanning with a minimum of intensity.