Localized plasmonic structured illumination microscopy with optically trapped microlens

Anna Bezryadina, Jinxing Li, Junxiang Zhao, Alefia Kothambawala, Joseph Louis Ponsetto, Eric Huang, Joseph Wang and Zhaowei Liu

Localized plasmonic structured illumination microscopy (LPSIM) is a recently developed super resolution technique that demonstrates immense potential via arrays of localized plasmonic antennas. Microlens microscopy represents another distinct approach for improving resolution by introducing spherical lens with large refractive index to boost the effective numerical aperture of the imaging system. In this LetterPaper, we bridge together the LPSIM and optically trapped spherical microlenses, for the first time, to demonstrate a new super resolution technique for surface imaging. By trapping and moving polystyrene and TiO2 microspheres with optical tweezers on top of a LPSIM substrate, the new imaging system has achieved higher NA and resolution improvement.

DOI