Full-field near-field optical microscope for cell imaging.

We report a new full-field fluorescence microscopy method for imaging live cell membranes based on supercritical near-field emission. This technique consists of extracting the self-interference between undercritical and supercritical light by simple image subtraction. In the objective back focal plane, this is equivalent to adding a virtual mask blocking the subcritical emission.

Full-field supercritical angle fluorescence microscopy for live cell imaging.

We introduce a full-field fluorescence imaging technique with axial confinement of about 100 nm at the sample/substrate interface. Contrary to standard surface imaging techniques, this confinement is obtained through emission filtering. This technique is based on supercritical emission selectivity.