Abstract: Vapor is provided locally at a sample surface to allow fluorescence of the fluorescent markers in a vacuum chamber. For example, a nanocapillary can dispense a liquid near a region of interest, the liquid evaporating to increase the vapor pressure near the fluorescent markers. The increase in vapor pressure at the fluorescent marker is preferably sufficiently great to prevent deactivation or to reactivate the fluorescent marker, while the overall pressure in the vacuum chamber is preferably sufficiently low to permit charged particle beam operation with little or no additional evacuation pumping.

Abstract: Composite probes for super resolution optical techniques using super resolution via transiently activated quenchers (STAQ) include a donor moiety and an acceptor moiety joined by a linker, wherein the acceptor moiety, when excited by incident radiation, is excited to a state which, for example, absorbs in the donor emission region, such that the acceptor moiety in its excited state quenches at least a portion of the donor moiety emission. Other transiently activated quenching mechanisms and moieties could accomplish the same task by reducing donor population. Also disclosed are methods for irradiating a selected region of a target material including the composite probe, wherein the composite probe enables improved resolution by point spread function modification and/or nanoscale chemical reactions.

Abstract: The present invention provides an optical microscope capable of suppressing unnecessary response light as a background and detecting desired response light in nonlinear optical response process with a good S/N ratio.

Abstract: A method for identification of a sample of a material is disclosed. The method includes illuminating a sample at a plurality of excitation wavelengths, measuring the intensity at each of the plurality of excitation wavelengths, locating the values of maxima in the three-dimensional intensity contour, comparing the maxima to a library of values of known maxima associated with known species, generating a model of a three-dimensional intensity contour based on maxima values comprising values of likely maxima from the library, comparing the model of an intensity contour to the measured contour to determine residual errors, outputting the species associated with the maxima values used to generate the model as an indicator of species, determining corrections to the model of a three-dimensional intensity contour to generate a corrected model, and returning to the comparison step to test the corrected model.

Abstract: A laser scanning microscope provides advantages that replacement of any optical element becomes unnecessary, and ease of operation and positioning repeatability of light stimulation are improved.

Abstract: Methods for the preparation of inorganic nanoparticles capable of fluorescence, wherein the nanoparticles consist of a host material that comprises at least one dopant. The synthesis of the invention in organic solvents allows to gain a considerably higher yield compared to the prior art synthesis in water. All kinds of objects can advantageously be marked and reliably authenticated by using an automated method on the basis of a characteristic emission. Further, the size distribution of the prepared nanoparticles is nartower which renders a subsequent size-selected separation process superfluous.

Abstract: An optical method, and an optical device based on a laser source for implementing an optical method, for nonintrusively measuring the temperature of a flowing liquid by using the fluorescence induced by a laser beam in a measurement volume of the liquid, uses a single temperature-sensitive fluorescent tracer and at least two separate spectral detection windows on the tracer, after molecular dilution of the tracer in the liquid medium.