Enhancing the performance of fluorescence emission difference microscopy using beam modulation

Fluorescence emission difference microscopy (FED) has been proved to be an effective method to break the diffraction barrier which had restricted the spatial resolution of optical microscopy in the far-field for a long time. In this paper, we theoretically demonstrate that the attainable resolution of FED can be further enhanced by using beam modulation. By applying beam shape modulating, polarization state modulating, phase encoding and beam blocking to the illumination beams in the process of FED imaging, we optimize the size of the corresponding PSFs and thus improve the resolving ability of FED. The simulation tests demonstrate that in the optimal case after beam modulation, the resolution of FED can be enhanced by a factor of 26% compared with a conventional one. (paper)