English

Quantum-inspired super-resolution of fluorescent point-like sources

Optics 2025-01-22 v2 Biological Physics Chemical Physics Quantum Physics

Abstract

We report the experimental super-resolution of pairs of point-like fluorescent sources using a modified image inversion interferometer microscope. The technique is inspired by recent developments in the application of quantum parameter estimation theory to semiclassical imaging problems. We find that the image inversion technique requires special polarization filtering to account for the dipolar nature of the emission. Using an azimuthal polarizer, we obtain improvements in the Fisher information of point-source separation by over an order of magnitude relative to direct imaging. Unlike established super-resolution fluorescence techniques, the method does not require sequential photoswitching/blinking of the fluorophores, and thus could facilitate significant speed-ups for certain biological imaging/tracking tasks.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.16835,
  title  = {Quantum-inspired super-resolution of fluorescent point-like sources},
  author = {Cheyenne S. Mitchell and Dhananjay Dhruva and Zachary P. Burke and David J. Durden and Armine I. Dingilian and Mikael P. Backlund},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.16835},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

v2 includes supplementary material and minor revisions to v1 main text