Super-resolution visible photoactivated atomic force microscopy

Imaging the intrinsic optical absorption properties of nanomaterials with optical microscopy (OM) is hindered by the optical diffraction limit and intrinsically poor sensitivity. Thus, expensive and destructive electron microscopy (EM) has been commonly used to examine the morphologies of nanostructures. Further, while nanoscale fluorescence OM has become crucial for investigating the morphologies and functions of intracellular specimens, this modality is not suitable for imaging optical absorption and requires the use of possibly undesirable exogenous fluorescent molecules for biological samples. Here we demonstrate super-resolution visible photoactivated atomic force microscopy (pAFM), which can sense intrinsic optical absorption with ∼8 nm resolution. Thus, the resolution can be improved down to ∼8 nm. This system can detect not only the first harmonic response, but also the higher harmonic response using the nonlinear effect. The thermoelastic effects induced by pulsed laser irradiation allow us to obtain visible pAFM images of single gold nanospheres, various nanowires, and biological cells, all with nanoscale resolution. Unlike expensive EM, the visible pAFM system can be simply implemented by adding an optical excitation sub-system to a commercial atomic force microscope.