Fig. 1: Optomechanically controlled MAxSIM with HCM.
a Optical layout of MAxSIM. AOTF: acousto-optic tunable filter; M: mirror; L: lens; SLM: spatial light modulator; LP: linear polarizer; QWP: quarter-wave plate; DM: dichroic mirror; Si: silicon wafer; SiO2: silicon dioxide layer; sCMOS: scientific complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor. b Schematic (top: birds-eye view showing patterned ridge structure on SiO2/Si layer) of the HCM fabrication procedure using a negative photoresist mask (bottom). The ridge structure is asymmetric between the top and bottom to define sample orientation. Ridge height is denoted as h0 (bottom). c Example diffraction patterns (left) uploaded on the SLM to achieve incident angle (θair = 19° and 33° in air) as measured using a protractor in the air above the objective (right) with a 488-nm laser. d Simulated excitation light (λ = 488 nm) intensity patterns in x-z dimensions with the presence of a mirror using one beam excitation with incident angle θair = 19° (top, MAxSIM) and two symmetric beams with incident angle θair = 60° (bottom, 2D-SIM). e Simulated light intensity modulations, \(I(\theta ,h)\), using one-beam excitation as a function of the incident angle in the air (θair, top x-axis) and in water immersion medium (\({\theta }_{{{{{{\rm{w}}}}}}}\), bottom x-axis) at axial locations at the ridge tips, h0 = 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000 nm away from the HCM. The number of interference fringes increases at a higher position from the mirror. f Measured incident angle-dependent fluorescence light intensity modulation of Alexa 488 dye on the bottom glass substrate with an HCM (h0 = ~10.7 µm) and excitation at λ = 488 nm, which is normalized between (0, 1) (gray dashed line). The fitting range of the best performance was selected between purple vertical bars by our reconstruction algorithm and the height (h) = 8255 nm was retrieved with <1% fitting uncertainty (NELD = 0.008) between the gray dashed line (raw data) and fitted orange solid line.
