Super-resolution optical imaging of soft matter

Abstract

Conventional optical microscopy techniques suffer from a physical barrier known as the diffraction limit or Abbe limit. Optical imaging beyond the diffraction limit helps to understand the physics of liquid crystals at the nanoscale. Super-resolution microscopic techniques such as structured illumination microscopy (SIM), stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy and RESOLFT (reversible saturable optically linear fluorescent transitions) microscopy, stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM), photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM) have been used to study the spatial structures of living and non-living systems. It has been showed that three-dimensional STORM imaging can achieve 10 times better spatial resolution than the diffraction limit. In this project, super-resolution optical images of soft matter systems such as liquid crystals and polymers have been analysed. The images used in this project were taken from SIM and STORM experiments. The images include photographs of liquid crystals in an unusual nematic (twist bend nematic) and smectic (dark conglomerate) phases and photopolymerised liquid crystal phases. The image analysis provided insights into the structural .arrangement in novel liquid crystal phases