Kindling molecules: a new way to ‘break’ the Abbe limit

Fluorescence microscopy is a key tool for biological investigations. However, compared to other techniques like electron microscopy, the achievable resolution is still limited. Tremendous efforts have been devoted to improve the resolution of far-field optical microscopy. Several techniques do exist; however their adoption by biologists has been slowed by several technical limitations. We propose a new method based on a recently discovered family of optically switchable fluorescent molecules. Kindling proteins open the way to very high resolution in far-field fluorescence 3-D microscopy with relatively simple techniques. To cite this article: O. Haeberlé, C. R. Physique 5 (2004).