Photoactivation of Luminescent Centers in Single SiO2 Nanoparticles.

Photobleaching of fluorophores is one of the key problems in fluorescence microscopy. Overcoming the limitation of the maximum number of photons, which can be detected from a single emitter, would allow one to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio and thus the temporal and spatial resolution in fluorescence imaging. It would be a breakthrough for many applications of fluorescence spectroscopy, which are unachievable up to now.