Novel Techniques in Microscopy (NTM) (NTM 2013)

NTM - The topical meeting on Novel Techniques in Microscopy will focus specifically on novel techniques rather than applications. The goal of this meeting is to provide a forum for the interaction of inventors in optical microscopy, researchers and students, and industrial participants. Optical microscopy is one of the most important tools in biological research. Technical advances are continually pushing back the limits of microscopy performance and versatility. These advances are occurring on many fronts. Examples include new strategies for superresolution beyond the diffraction limit, including stimulated emission depletion microscopy (STED), techniques based on molecular photoactivation (PALM, STORM, etc), and structured illumination. New techniques aimed at increasing the depth penetration in tissue, based for example on adaptive optics or scattering matrix inversion, form another active area of developments. At the same time, miniaturized optics with GRIN lenses or fibers are opening new directions in intravital imaging. Examples include the development of fluorescence endomicroscopes and optical coherence tomography (OCT) fiberscopes. Other approaches have concentrated on phase imaging, such as interference microscopy, digital holography, and polarization imaging. In addition, technical advances continue to improve the image contrast based on nonlinear mechanisms, such as multi -photon excitation, multi-harmonic generation, coherent Raman scattering, and stimulated emission, with recent emphasis on coherent control. This meeting will provide a rich collection of recent highlights in these and other fronts of technical developments in optical microscopy.