Researchers achieve ultimate resolution limit in fluorescence microscopy

It is the holy grail of light microscopy: improving the resolving power of this method such that one can individually discern molecules that are very close to each other. Scientists around the Nobel laureate Stefan Hell at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen have now achieved what was for a long time considered impossible – they have developed a new fluorescence microscope, called MINFLUX, allowing, for the first time, to optically separate molecules, which