Researchers have demonstrated that placing cells on a plasmonic metasurface of self-assembled gold nanoparticle can improve the resolution of images of living cells taken in real-time under a widefield fluorescence microscope. The metasurface effectively confines light emission from parts of the cell near the metasurface to a nano-thickness plane, providing a simple method to improving both axial and lateral resolution.

Source: Higher-resolution imaging of living, moving cells using plasmonic metasurfaces