Optical microscopy beyond the diffraction limit

Over the past century the resolution of far-field optical microscopes, which rely on propagating optical modes, was widely believed to be limited because of diffraction to a value on the order of a half-wavelength lambda/2 of the light used. Although immersion microscopes had slightly improved resolution on the order of lambda/2n, the increased resolution was limited by the small range of refractive indices, n, of available transparent materials. We are experiencing quick demolition of the diffraction limit in optical microscopy. Over the past few years numerous nonlinear optical microscopy techniques based on photoswitching and saturation of fluorescence demonstrated far-field resolution of 20 to 30 nm. The latest exciting example of these techniques has been demonstrated by Huang et al. [Science 319, 810-813, (2008)]. Moreover, recent progress in metamaterials indicates that artificial optical media can be created, which do not exhibit the diffraction limit. Resolution of linear "immersion" microscopes based on such metamaterials appears limited only by losses, which can be compensated by gain media. Thus, optical microscopy is quickly moving towards the 10 nm resolution scale, which should bring about numerous revolutionary advances in biomedical imaging.