Ptychography For High Resolution Microscopy

Nowadays, if you have a microscope, you probably have a camera of some sort attached. [Applied Science] shows how you can add an array of tiny LEDs and some compute power to produce high-resolution images — higher than you can get with the microscope on its own. The idea is to illuminate each LED in the array individually and take a picture. Then, an algorithm constructs a higher-resolution image from the collected images. You can see the results and an explanation in the video below.

You’d think you could use this to enhance a cheap microscope, but the truth is you need a high-quality microscope to start with. In addition, color cameras may not be usable, so you may have to find or create a monochrome camera.

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Ptychography Shows Atoms At Amazing Resolution

Cornell University enhanced electron microscopy using a technique known as ptychography in 2018. At the time, it allowed an electron microscope to resolve things three times smaller than previously possible. But that wasn’t enough. The team has now doubled that resolution by improving on their previous work.

The team says that the images are so precise that the only blurring is due to the thermal motion of the atoms themselves. This could mean that you won’t see a further improvement in resolution in the future.

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