Description
In the last two decades, a remarkable series of improvements has occurred in the design of optical microscopes, in concert with developments in post-acquisition image processing and enabled by the enormous advances in computer power. The outcome of these developments is a steady and dramatic improvement in resolution. The original concept, as laid out by Ernst Abbe in the 1890s, was that resolution in optical microscopy has its limit, and as a consequence many investigators took for granted that optical microscopy had reached its final stage. Thanks to the efforts by many researchers exploring new avenues in optical microscopy, we can say today that nothing in the optical realm should be taken for granted and that Abbe’s refraction barrier, considered by so many for so long as a near-absolute barrier, has been widely breached. Thus the gap between optical and electron microscopy is being closed by far-reaching developments in optical microscopy. Methods have progressed alongside the technological advances, and innovative ideas and procedures have been developed to bridge the resolution gap from the electron microscope level, by performing correlative light and electron microscopy. In Cellular Imaging Techniques for Neuroscience and Beyond, specialists report on the current status of various approaches nibbling away at Abbe’s barrier.
