On polarization effects in fluorescence depletion microscopy

Enhanced lateral resolution in continuous wave stimulated emission depletion microscopy using tightly focused annular radially polarized excitation beam

“…Depletion efficiency can differ according to the polarization direction difference between excitation beam and depletion beam . However, even when the field components of the depletion and excitation beams are mutually perpendicular, depletion can be induced.…”

Generation of multiple focal holes by tightly focused azimuthally polarized double-ring-shaped beam with complex phase mask

“…Over the past several years, a variety of techniques have been proposed for generating such optical bottle beams for applications in optical tweezers and atom traps [9,10]. Especially the point spread function with central zero intensity ring is useful in stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, optical trapping for low and high refractive index particles and optical lithography [11][12][13][14][15][16]. Three dimensional (3D) multi sites optical trapping requires multi focal holes in the focal region, which is not easy to achieve.…”

Enlightening darkness to diffraction limit and beyond: comparison and optimization of different polarizations for dark spot generation

“…Reference [17] uses Laguerre-Gaussian and Hermite-Gaussian beams, which are not necessarily optimized cases, and presents the total intensity (there may be applications requiring only a specific field component, e.g., a longitudinal one). For STED, it was shown that for specific pump/eraser combinations, a circularly polarized unit vortex beam as an eraser is advantageous compared to an azimuthally polarized one [20]. Thus, the question of which polarization is the most suited for dark spot generation is pertinent from both academic and applications points of view.…”