STED Microscopy

STED Microscopy

Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy is a process that provides super resolution by selectively deactivating fluorophores to enhance the imaging in that area. It was developed by Stefan W. Hell in 1994, and was first experimentally shown in 1999. This is one of several types of super resolution microscopy techniques that have recently been developed. Super resolution microscopy is a set of techniques to bypass the diffraction limit of microscopy to achieve better resolution. Both Photoactivated Localization Microscopy (PALM) and Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM) are also super resolution microscopy techniques, although they use a different process than STED to achieve this resolution.