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Resolving a misconception about structured illumination

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Applying structured illumination microscopy to coherent imaging modalities such as scattering does not yield any additional information beyond that provided by oblique illumination. It thus yields no resolution enhancement over the Abbe diffraction limit, which was derived precisely for that case.

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Figure 1: Frequency representation of the detectable information for various coherent illumination schemes in reflection geometry.
Figure 2: Resolution capability of different illumination schemes (simulation).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kai Wicker wrote this commentary while at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Helmholtzweg 4, 07743 Jena, Germany, Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT), Albert-Einstein Strasse 9, 07745 Jena, Germany; his present affiliation is Carl Zeiss AG, Corporate Research and Technology, Carl-Zeiss-Promenade 10, 07745 Jena, Germany,

    Kai Wicker

  2. his present affiliation is Carl Zeiss AG, Corporate Research and Technology, Carl-Zeiss-Promenade 10, 07745 Jena, Germany,

    Kai Wicker

  3. and Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics, Rainer Heintzmann is at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Helmholtzweg 4, 07743 Jena, Germany, Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT), Albert-Einstein Strasse 9, 07745 Jena, Germany, King's College London, NHH, Guy's Campus, London SE1 1UL, UK,

    Rainer Heintzmann

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  1. Kai Wicker
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  2. Rainer Heintzmann
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Correspondence to Rainer Heintzmann.

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Competing interests

Rainer Heintzmann holds a patent (patent no. WO2000052512A1) on nonlinear structured illumination microscopy. Kai Wicker currently works for a company that has an associated enterprise with a structured illumination microscope in their sales portfolio.

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Wicker, K., Heintzmann, R. Resolving a misconception about structured illumination. Nature Photon 8, 342–344 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.88

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