Resolution enhancement of fluorescence microscopy using encoded patterns from all-dielectric metasurfaces

Abstract

Metasurfaces consist of artificially fabricated nanostructures and have shown potential for optical devices due to their precise control of light. Here, we demonstrate a metasurface application to improve the lateral resolution of the optical system in fluorescence microscopy based on patterned illumination. We designed and fabricated all-dielectric metasurfaces to have various encoded illumination patterns in the visible range. Super-resolution images were acquired using the designed metasurfaces in numerical simulations and in experiments. In experiments, we improved the lateral resolution to 1.71-fold of the existing system; this resolution is much finer than the diffraction limit of conventional imaging systems. We expect that our technique can provide insight into guide development of metasurfaces as patterned illumination optical devices.