Vertico spatially modulated illumination information

Vertico spatially modulated illumination (Vertico-SMI) is the fastest^{[citation needed]} light microscope for the 3D analysis of complete cells in the nanometer range. It is based on two technologies developed in 1996, SMI (spatially modulated illumination) and SPDM (spectral precision distance microscopy). The effective optical resolution of this optical nanoscope has reached the vicinity of 5 nm in 2D and 40 nm in 3D, greatly surpassing the λ/2 resolution limit (about 200 nm for blue light) applying to standard microscopy using transmission or reflection of natural light (as opposed to structured illumination or fluorescence) according to the Abbe resolution limit^[1] That limit (also known as the Rayleigh limit) had been determined by Ernst Abbe in 1873 and governs the achievable resolution limit of microscopes using conventional techniques.

The Vertico-SMI microscope was developed by a team led by Christoph Cremer, emeritus^[2] at Heidelberg University, and is based on the combination of light optical techniques of localization microscopy (SPDM, spectral precision distance microscopy) and structured illumination (SMI, spatially modulated illumination).

Since March 2008 many standard fluorescent dyes like GFP and Alexa fluorescent dyes can be used with this so-called SPDMphymod (physically modifiable fluorophores) localization microscopy, for which only one single laser wavelength of suitable intensity is sufficient for nanoimaging.