With the rapid revolution in super-resolution microscopy, the resolution of far-field optical microscopy has entered the sub-nanometer era, providing new insights into macromolecules in vitro and in situ.
Super-resolution imaging technology has been recognized by Nature as one of the top seven frontier technologies in 2024, underscoring its pivotal role in contemporary scientific research. Since the beginning of the 21st century, this technology has made many groundbreaking advances (Jungmann et al. 2014; Rust et al. 2006; Willig et al. 2006), driven by the deep convergence of physics, chemistry, and life sciences, alongside continuous innovation in both hardware and software. These breakthroughs have profoundly enhanced research across life sciences, particularly in molecular and cellular biology, offering unprecedented opportunities to visualize biological structures at the nanoscale. A notable milestone in this field was the award of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell, and William E. Moerner, for their pioneering work in super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Their achievements, which overcame the diffraction limit of traditional optical microscopy, have enabled imaging at nanometer resolution, revolutionizing our ability to explore the molecular intricacies of biological systems.
In recent years, advancements in super-resolution fluorescence microscopy have delivered remarkable progress, with some techniques now pushing spatial resolution to the angstrom (Å) scale. This leap forward provides researchers with powerful tools to investigate biomolecular structures, protein complexes, and intracellular dynamics, with far-reaching implications for the life sciences. The following sections introduce several representative super-resolution imaging techniques in recent years, detailing their underlying principles and exploring their potential applications in biological research.
DOI:10.52601/bpr.2024.240060