Optimizing experimental conditions for stimulated emission depletion microscopy in biophotonics

摘要

Using a novel numerical method we show how to optimize the resolution enhancement of stimulated emission depletion (STED) by simulating the entire process including the absorption, overlapping multiple beams and stimulated emission. We provide calculations showing that for fixed donut pulse energy, a longer donut pulse length can result in greater resolution enhancement than a shorter donut pulse length. These results show how it is possible to use our simulations to design the best experimental conditions for STED resolution enhancement and illustrate the importance of having a software program that includes both multiple beams and stimulated emission.