Mainz 2017 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 20: Nano-Optics II

Q 20.5: Talk

Tuesday, March 7, 2017, 12:00–12:15, P 11

Universal systematic polarization-dependent errors at the wavelength-scale for position measurements in super-resolution microscopy — •Stefan Walser, Jürgen Volz, and Arno Rauschenbeutel — Atominstitut TU Wien

Super-resolution microscopy is a fast evolving field that revolutionized traditional optical microscopy. Using different techniques, these approaches enhance the precision of optical microscopy significantly beyond the standard resolution limit of λ/NA and routinely reach resolutions of a few nanometers. Here we show experimentally that, depending on the polarization of the light emitted by the observed particle, systematic wavelength-scale errors can occur when determining the particle’s position using centroid fitting techniques. Surprisingly the observed shifts are universal, i.e., they are independent of the numerical aperture NA or magnification of the imaging optics. We demonstrate this effect by imaging a single gold nano-particle with an optical microscope. We observe a shift of the particle’s apparent position of up to 0.3 λ when varying the polarization of the light (wavelength : λ = 685nm) emitted by the nano-particle.