Stimulated Emission Depletion Microscopy with Color Centers in Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Abstract

Stimulated emission depletion, or STED microscopy, is a well-established super-resolution technique, but is ultimately limited by the chosen fluorophore. Here we demonstrate STED microscopy with color centers in nanoscale flakes of hexagonal boron nitride using time-gated, continuous-wave STED. For color centers with zero phonon line emission around 580 nm, we measure a STED cross section of (5.5 ± 3.2) × 10-17 cm2, achieve a resolution of ∼50 nm, and resolve two color centers separated by 250 nm, which is less than the diffraction limit. The achieved resolution is limited by the numerical aperture of the objective lens (0.8) and the available laser power, and we predict that a resolution of sub-10 nm can be achieved with an oil immersion objective lens, similar to the state-of-the-art resolution obtained with nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond.