103. NOBEL PRIZE – CHEMISTRY

♤ Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner jointly have been awarded Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.

♤ Optical resolution of a microscope describes the ability to resolve detail in the object that is being imaged.

♤ Scientists assumed thatoptical microscopy was limited to half the wavelength of light. Ernst Abbe propounded that a maximum resolution of 0.2 micrometers can be achieved through optical microscopy known as Abbe limit.

♤ These three scientists surpassed the Abbe limit and have enabled scientists to analyze the nano- dimension.

♤ Two different approaches known as stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy and single molecule microscopy was adopted.