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As one of the most powerful tools in the biological investigation of cellular structures and dynamic processes, fluorescence microscopy has undergone extraordinary developments in the past decades. The advent of super-resolution techniques has enabled fluorescence microscopy - or rather nanoscopy - to achieve nanoscale resolution in living specimens and unravelled the interior of cells with unprecedented detail. The methods employed in this expanding field of microscopy, however, are especially prone to the detrimental effects of optical aberrations. In this review, we discuss how super-resolution microscopy techniques based upon single-molecule switching, stimulated emission depletion and structured illumination each suffer from aberrations in different ways that are dependent upon intrinsic technical aspects. We discuss the use of adaptive optics as an effective means to overcome this problem.

Original publication

DOI

10.1093/jmicro/dfv033

Type

Journal article

Journal

Microscopy (Oxf)

Publication Date

08/2015

Volume

64

Pages

251 - 261

Keywords

aberrations, adaptive optics, single-molecule switching, stimulated emission depletion, structured illumination, super-resolution microscopy, Lighting, Microscopy, Fluorescence, Optics and Photonics