Temporal compressive super-resolution microscopy at frame rate of 1200 frames per second and spatial resolution of 100 nm

Various super-resolution microscopy techniques have been presented to explore fine structures of biological specimens. However, the super-resolution capability is often achieved at the expense of reducing imaging speed by either point scanning or multiframe computation. The contradiction between spatial resolution and imaging speed seriously hampers the observation of high-speed dynamics of fine structures. To overcome this contradiction, here we propose and demonstrate a temporal compressive super-resolution microscopy (TCSRM) technique. This technique is to merge an enhanced temporal compressive microscopy and a deep-learning-based super-resolution image reconstruction, where the enhanced temporal compressive microscopy is utilized to improve the imaging speed, and the deep-learning-based super-resolution image reconstruction is used to realize the resolution enhancement. The high-speed super-resolution imaging ability of TCSRM with a frame rate of 1200 frames per second (fps) and spatial resolution of 100 nm is experimentally demonstrated by capturing the flowing fluorescent beads in microfluidic chip. Given the outstanding imaging performance with high-speed super-resolution, TCSRM provides a desired tool for the studies of high-speed dynamical behaviors in fine structures, especially in the biomedical field.