Focal-Plane Extreme Adaptive Optics for Deep Super Resolution Imaging and Nanolithography
Abstract
Super resolution optical imaging and nanolithography enable nanoscale observation and fabrication, but high order, spatially varying phase and amplitude aberrations in optically heterogeneous media severely limit their performance at depth. Here we introduce focal-plane extreme adaptive optics (FP-ExAO), which moves beyond conventional phase conjugate correction by directly sensing and controlling the focal-plane complex field. This terminal field captures aberrations accumulated throughout the optical system. A state space formulation directly links deformable mirror commands to the focal field, avoiding explicit plane by plane Fourier optics modelling, while information theoretically optimal probing and closed-form control enable rapid field estimation and correction. Cascaded deformable mirrors further enable FP-ExAO to correct coupled phase-amplitude and spatially varying aberrations. In three-dimensional (3D) single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM), FP-ExAO enables imaging to 160 um depth in brain tissue and beyond 60 um in kidney tissue, while maintaining approximately 18 nm localization precision across a 75 um x 75 um corrected field, with a 16-fold larger field of view and more than tenfold faster correction than conventional AO methods. These capabilities meet the imaging requirements for 3D deep tissue optical connectome reconstruction and quantitative super resolution pathology. In stimulated emission depletion (STED) nanolithography, FP-ExAO reduces the minimum written linewidth from 251.1 nm without correction to 88.8 nm at a depth of 160 um in photoresist. FP-ExAO establishes a new adaptive optics paradigm for deep nanoscale optical readout and writing.
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BibTeX
@misc{liu2026focalplane,
title = {{Focal-Plane Extreme Adaptive Optics for Deep Super Resolution Imaging and Nanolithography}},
author = {Jinxin Liu and Jiahao Niu and Runxin Zeng and Kaining Yang and Ziyu Li and Xiaodong Guan and Jing Ren and Kebin Shi and Yue Wang and Shan Zhao and Yujie Sun and He Sun},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.39340},
eprint = {2610.39340},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.39340},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Focal-Plane Extreme Adaptive Optics for Deep Super Resolution Imaging and Nanolithography
AU - Jinxin Liu
AU - Jiahao Niu
AU - Runxin Zeng
AU - Kaining Yang
AU - Ziyu Li
AU - Xiaodong Guan
AU - Jing Ren
AU - Kebin Shi
AU - Yue Wang
AU - Shan Zhao
AU - Yujie Sun
AU - He Sun
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.39340
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.39340
AB - Super resolution optical imaging and nanolithography enable nanoscale observation and fabrication, but high order, spatially varying phase and amplitude aberrations in optically heterogeneous media severely limit their performance at depth. Here we introduce focal-plane extreme adaptive optics (FP-ExAO), which moves beyond conventional phase conjugate correction by directly sensing and controlling the focal-plane complex field. This terminal field captures aberrations accumulated throughout the optical system. A state space formulation directly links deformable mirror commands to the focal field, avoiding explicit plane by plane Fourier optics modelling, while information theoretically optimal probing and closed-form control enable rapid field estimation and correction. Cascaded deformable mirrors further enable FP-ExAO to correct coupled phase-amplitude and spatially varying aberrations. In three-dimensional (3D) single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM), FP-ExAO enables imaging to 160 um depth in brain tissue and beyond 60 um in kidney tissue, while maintaining approximately 18 nm localization precision across a 75 um x 75 um corrected field, with a 16-fold larger field of view and more than tenfold faster correction than conventional AO methods. These capabilities meet the imaging requirements for 3D deep tissue optical connectome reconstruction and quantitative super resolution pathology. In stimulated emission depletion (STED) nanolithography, FP-ExAO reduces the minimum written linewidth from 251.1 nm without correction to 88.8 nm at a depth of 160 um in photoresist. FP-ExAO establishes a new adaptive optics paradigm for deep nanoscale optical readout and writing.
ER -