Arkhipov Anton, Schulten Klaus
Department of Physics and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
Opt Express. 2009 Feb 16;17(4):2861-70. doi: 10.1364/oe.17.002861.
Employing interference patterns for illumination has been shown to reduce the focal volume in fluorescence microscopy. For example, the 4Pi technique employs two interfering laser beams and significantly decreases the focal volume, as compared to conventional microscopy. We study theoretically the effect of using multiple interfering laser beams on the focal volume. In realistic setups with three or four beams, the focal volume is about half of that from the 4Pi case. This improvement reaches a limit quickly as more beams are added, and for the idealized case of an infinite number of beams the focal volume is rather close to the three- or four-beam cases. Thus, our study suggests a limit for the possible reduction of the focal volume in a purely optical far-field setup.
利用干涉图样进行照明已被证明可减少荧光显微镜中的焦体积。例如，4Pi技术采用两束干涉激光束，与传统显微镜相比，可显著减小焦体积。我们从理论上研究了使用多束干涉激光束对焦体积的影响。在实际的三束或四束光设置中，焦体积约为4Pi情况的一半。随着光束数量的增加，这种改进很快达到极限，对于无限多光束的理想化情况，焦体积相当接近三束或四束光的情况。因此，我们的研究表明了在纯光学远场设置中焦体积可能减小的极限。
