Two-photon virtual structured illumination microscopy

Abstract

One-photon structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is a powerful tool in the field of life science. To improve the resolution and imaging depth of fluorescence microscopy, we propose a novel super-resolution microscopy called two-photon virtual SIM (2p-vSIM), and establish an imaging theory model for it. To verify the resolving ability of 2p-vSIM, we carry out the simulation experiments on the Lena image and 100 nm fluorescent beads. The results show that the imaging resolution is increased by a factor of 1.95 compared with conventional two-photon imaging technology. Our 2p-vSIM has the advantages of optical sectioning and large imaging depth of two-photon microscopy as well as the super-resolution ability of virtual SIM, and enables super-resolution imaging of thick biological samples with high scattering and even dynamic super-resolution imaging of live cells.