
Point spread function analysis with saturable and reverse saturable scattering
Author(s) -
Hsuan Lee,
Ryosuke Oketani,
Yuejiao Huang,
Kuan Yu Li,
Yasuo Yonemaru,
Masahito Yamanaka,
Satoshi Kawata,
Katsumasa Fujita,
ShiWei Chu
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.22.026016
Subject(s) - optics , scattering , point spread function , materials science , microscopy , light scattering , plasmon , saturation (graph theory) , physics , mathematics , combinatorics
Nonlinear plasmonics has attracted a lot of interests due to its wide applications. Recently, we demonstrated saturation and reverse saturation of scattering from a single plasmonic nanoparticle, which exhibits extremely narrow side lobes and central peaks in scattering images [ACS Photonics 1(1), 32 (2014)]. It is desirable to extract the reversed saturated part to further enhance optical resolution. However, such separation is not possible with conventional confocal microscope. Here we combine reverse saturable scattering and saturated excitation (SAX) microscopy. With quantitative analyses of amplitude and phase of SAX signals, unexpectedly high-order nonlinearities are revealed. Our result provides greatly reduced width in point spread function of scattering-based optical microscopy. It will find applications in not only nonlinear material analysis, but also high-resolution biomedical microscopy.