Handbook of Biomedical Optics

543

26.1 Introduction

Light microscopy has several advantages over non-light-optical

microscopy methods in terms of sample preparation and cost-

eectiveness, as well as in the variety of possibilities to extract

biologically signicant information. Especially the advances in

uorescent labeling and thus in uorescence microscopy opened

a broad diversity of utilizations.

However, the major drawback of standard uorescence

microscopy lies in the intrinsically limited resolving power of

standard microscopes.

Already in the nineteenth century, this fundamental limit

was recognized as depending on the wavelength of the light and

on the nume ...