MIT team reports angstrom-scale localization with single-laser U-STORM imaging

Researchers in Sam Peng's lab at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have developed a super-resolution method that localizes molecular structures at angstrom-level precision using a simplified imaging process, phys.org reported, citing an open-access Nature Nanotechnology paper. The approach, called U-STORM, uses upconverting nanoparticles that can blink indefinitely under illumination, unlike traditional dyes that fade quickly. Phys.org said the method reaches localization precision of 0.6 Å after more than 88,000 localization events from the same particle, three orders of magnitude beyond nanometer-scale limits of standard fluorescent dyes, while using one laser. An open-access description by Saptarshi Mandal and colleagues was published in Nature Nanotechnology (DOI: 10.1038/s41565-026-02233-x). The work is positioned as a way to visualize molecular structures with fewer experimental constraints than multi-laser dye systems.