The Future of Optical Microscopy: Innovations and Breakthroughs

Dear Colleagues,

The documented applications of light for imaging purposes by various scientists from the east side of the planet to the west of it date back thousands of years. The development of microscopes in the late 16th century revolutionized the imaging world. After the theory of electricity and magnetism was developed by scientists, manipulating light advanced imaging technologies, and researchers started exploring the microscopic world and describing various organisms and structures. The emergence of imaging modalities like phase contrast and fluorescence microscopy in the 19th century and sub-diffraction optical microscopy in the late 20th century advanced the field to a new level. Now, we can control various properties of the photons, such as the spatial and polarization states, phase, laser repetition rate, wavelength, scanning speed, and other characteristics that can be manipulated in favor of better imaging. They have expanded our imaging capabilities, facilitating research in various fields, including biology, materials science, and even nanotechnology. Moreover, the integration of microscopy and nanoscopy with computational techniques has enabled the visualization and analysis of complex biological systems in unprecedented detail, paving the way for advancements in biomedical research and beyond.

This Special Issue invites manuscripts that introduce the recent advances in optical microscopy. All theoretical, numerical, and experimental papers are accepted. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• New imaging techniques for biology applications: hardware designs, beam structures, and photon manipulations.
• Advances in theoretical biophotonics.
• Computational methods in optical microscopy.
• Imaging and spectroscopy in biomedical sciences.
• Multimodal biomedical imaging techniques.
• Translational and clinical biomedical optics.
• Quantum light and biology applications.

Dr. Behzad Khajavi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• optical microscopy
• fluorescence microscopy
• confocal microscopy
• light sheet microscopy
• optical coherence tomography
• spectroscopy
• quantum light
• computational methods