The Future of Microscopy

ICFO group leader and ICREA professor Niek van Hulst contributes to the web project Catalunya Vanguardista with a science viewpoint on modern optical microscopy. The perspective illustrates with various examples the pressing interest of modern science in observing ever-shrinking scales; explains the physical laws behind the limits of conventional microscopy in this point; and presents the basics of super-resolution optical microscopy, a set of techniques that resolves features 10 times smaller compared to conventional methods.

After three years of publishing history in newspapers, Catalunya Vanguardista presents itself now as a web portal, offering original contributions as well as selected publications from world-level media. Driven by a strong social compromise, and considering scientific method, artistic creation, economic growth analysis and the new social models to be “the wings of any society”, Catalunya Vanguardista, beyond merely informing about these issues, wants to be devised as a common ground for reflection and debate.