Chem-SIM: Super-resolution Chemical Imaging via Photothermal Modulation of Structured-Illumination Fluorescence

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Dong, Dashan, Jia, Danchen, Teng, Xinyan, Ao, Jianpeng, Abu-Aqil, George, Gao, Biwen, Zhang, Meng, Xia, Qing, Cheng, Ji-Xin
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Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Dong, Dashan
Jia, Danchen
Teng, Xinyan
Ao, Jianpeng
Abu-Aqil, George
Gao, Biwen
Zhang, Meng
Xia, Qing
Cheng, Ji-Xin
author_facet Dong, Dashan
Jia, Danchen
Teng, Xinyan
Ao, Jianpeng
Abu-Aqil, George
Gao, Biwen
Zhang, Meng
Xia, Qing
Cheng, Ji-Xin
contents Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) has attained high spatiotemporal delineation of subcellular architecture, yet offers limited insight into chemical composition. We develop Chem-SIM, a structured-illumination fluorescence detected mid-infrared photothermal microscopy, for super-resolved chemical imaging of microorganisms and mammalian cells. Poisson maximum-likelihood demodulation and spectral normalization across wavenumber recover the weak IR-induced fluorescence intensity change under low photon budgets and convert the fluorescence intensity modulation to chemical fingerprints. Photothermal gating further rejects water backgrounds in aqueous samples, while the IR pump maintains cellular activity at near-physiological temperature. Chem-SIM preserves full vibrational fingerprints, achieves SIM-grade lateral resolution in a high-throughput camera-based format. Here, we show that this platform distinguishes stationary- from log-phase bacteria through chemical content mapping, reports deuterated fatty-acid incorporation in ovarian cancer cells, and resolves lipid-droplet dynamics in live cells, establishing a high-throughput route to super-resolved imaging of organelle chemistry, metabolism, and dynamics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_16079
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Chem-SIM: Super-resolution Chemical Imaging via Photothermal Modulation of Structured-Illumination Fluorescence
Dong, Dashan
Jia, Danchen
Teng, Xinyan
Ao, Jianpeng
Abu-Aqil, George
Gao, Biwen
Zhang, Meng
Xia, Qing
Cheng, Ji-Xin
Optics
Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) has attained high spatiotemporal delineation of subcellular architecture, yet offers limited insight into chemical composition. We develop Chem-SIM, a structured-illumination fluorescence detected mid-infrared photothermal microscopy, for super-resolved chemical imaging of microorganisms and mammalian cells. Poisson maximum-likelihood demodulation and spectral normalization across wavenumber recover the weak IR-induced fluorescence intensity change under low photon budgets and convert the fluorescence intensity modulation to chemical fingerprints. Photothermal gating further rejects water backgrounds in aqueous samples, while the IR pump maintains cellular activity at near-physiological temperature. Chem-SIM preserves full vibrational fingerprints, achieves SIM-grade lateral resolution in a high-throughput camera-based format. Here, we show that this platform distinguishes stationary- from log-phase bacteria through chemical content mapping, reports deuterated fatty-acid incorporation in ovarian cancer cells, and resolves lipid-droplet dynamics in live cells, establishing a high-throughput route to super-resolved imaging of organelle chemistry, metabolism, and dynamics.
title Chem-SIM: Super-resolution Chemical Imaging via Photothermal Modulation of Structured-Illumination Fluorescence
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.16079