Ultra-Fast Digital Beam Scanning for Super-Resolution Microscopy

Modern laser scanning microscopy requires increasingly faster beam steering while maintaining nanometer-level positioning accuracy. Existing galvanometer-based scanners are limited by mechanical inertia, whereas analog electro-optical deflectors offer high speed but only over limited scan ranges and require complex analog control.

The presented technology introduces a digital beam steering/scanning architecture that combines multiple polarization-controlled electro-optical deflectors to achieve discrete, deterministic beam positioning with greatly expanded scan fields and excellent optical stability.

The technology employs cascaded digital electro-optical deflection stages in which the polarization state of the laser beam determines discrete angular deflection. Multiple deflection stages with progressively increasing angular increments create a hierarchical beam steering system capable of addressing a large number of scan positions.

Important technical features:

• Cascaded digital electro-optical deflectors
• Polarization-controlled beam steering
• Tilting of the beam around a fixed point within the microscope objective pupil
• Achromatic polarization optics for multi-wavelength operation
• Optional analog fine-steering stage for continuous positioning
• Efficient descanning of fluorescence emission independent of polarization
• Optimized digital scan sequences (e.g., Gray-code addressing) to reduce switching frequency and photobleaching.

• Ultra-fast electro-optical switching
• Excellent positioning reproducibility
• Reduced mechanical wear
• Lower vibration sensitivity
• Achromatic optical design
• Hybrid digital–analog positioning capability
• Reduced photobleaching through optimized scan trajectories
• Suitable for demanding super-resolution imaging applications
• Easily scalable by adding additional digital deflection stages.

• STED microscopy
• MINFLUX microscopy
• Confocal microscopy
• Live-cell imaging
• Fluorescence imaging

• DE602018053753T2
• EP3724707B1 (validated in DE, FR and GB)
• US11513327B2