Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Super-resolution microscopy has revolutionized the imaging of complex physical and biological systems by surpassing the Abbe diffraction limit. Recent advancements, particularly in single-molecule localization microscopy, have pushed localization below nanometer precision, by applying prior knowledge of correlated fluorescence emission from single emitters. However, achieving a refinement from 1 nm to 1 Ångström demands a hundred-fold increase in collected photon signal. This quadratic resource scaling imposes a fundamental barrier in single-molecule localization microscopy, where the intense photon collection is challenged by photo-bleaching, prolonged integration times, and inherent practical constraints. Here, we break this limit by harnessing the periodic nature of the atomic lattice structure. Applying this discrete grid imaging technique (DIGIT) in a quantum emitter system, we observe an exponential collapse of localization uncertainty once surpassing the host crystal's atomic lattice constant. We further applied DIGIT to a large-scale quantum emitter array, enabling parallel positioning of each emitter through wide-field imaging. Collectively, these advancements establish DIGIT as a competitive tool for achieving unprecedented, precise measurements, ultimately paving the way to direct optical resolution of crystal and atomic features within quantum and biological systems.
Duan et al. (Tue,) studied this question.