Achieving low-power single-wavelength-pair nanoscopy with NIR-II continuous-wave laser for multi-chromatic probes

• Published in: Nature communications 2022-05, Vol.13 (1), p.2843-10, Article 2843
• Main Authors: Guo, Xin, Pu, Rui, Zhu, Zhimin, Qiao, Shuqian, Liang, Yusen, Huang, Bingru, Liu, Haichun, Labrador-Páez, Lucía, Kostiv, Uliana, Zhao, Pu, Wu, Qiusheng, Widengren, Jerker, Zhan, Qiuqiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 14/63; 140/125; 639/301/1019/385; 639/624/1107/328/2238; 639/624/399/354; 639/925/930/2735; Actin; Amplification; Color; Continuous wave lasers; Depletion; Emissions; Emitters; Erbium; Excitation; Filaments; Gadolinium; Holmium; Humanities and Social Sciences; I.R. radiation; Imaging; Infrared lasers; Lasers; Luminous intensity; multidisciplinary; Nanoparticles; Near infrared radiation; Neodymium lasers; Power; Probes; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Stimulated emission; Upconversion; Wavelength; Wavelengths; Ytterbium
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30114-z

Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy is a powerful diffraction-unlimited technique for fluorescence imaging. Despite its rapid evolution, STED fundamentally suffers from high-intensity light illumination, sophisticated probe-defined laser schemes, and limited photon budget of the probes. Here, we demonstrate a versatile strategy, stimulated-emission induced excitation depletion (STExD), to deplete the emission of multi-chromatic probes using a single pair of low-power, near-infrared (NIR), continuous-wave (CW) lasers with fixed wavelengths. With the effect of cascade amplified depletion in lanthanide upconversion systems, we achieve emission inhibition for a wide range of emitters ( e.g ., Nd 3+ , Yb 3+ , Er 3+ , Ho 3+ , Pr 3+ , Eu 3+ , Tm 3+ , Gd 3+ , and Tb 3+ ) by manipulating their common sensitizer, i.e., Nd 3+ ions, using a 1064-nm laser. With NaYF 4 :Nd nanoparticles, we demonstrate an ultrahigh depletion efficiency of 99.3 ± 0.3% for the 450 nm emission with a low saturation intensity of 23.8 ± 0.4 kW cm −2 . We further demonstrate nanoscopic imaging with a series of multi-chromatic nanoprobes with a lateral resolution down to 34 nm, two-color STExD imaging, and subcellular imaging of the immunolabelled actin filaments. The strategy expounded here promotes single wavelength-pair nanoscopy for multi-chromatic probes and for multi-color imaging under low-intensity-level NIR-II CW laser depletion. The authors introduce stimulated-emission induced excitation depletion (STExD) nanoscopy using a single pair of low-power, near-infrared, continue-wave lasers. Emission of multichromatic probes is inhibited by cascade amplified depletion in lanthanide upconversion systems induced by manipulating their common sensitizer.