Getting the Most Out of Every Photon express

Original: "Fisher-Information-Driven Adaptive Acquisition for Photon-Efficient FLIM: A Dual-Implementation Framework for TCSPC and Programmable Time-Gating"

· J. Sumaya-Martinez, E. Torres-Garcia

arXiv:2601.00490 · 2026-01-01 · CC BY 4.0 · 1 min

Instrumentation and Detectors Biological Physics

Scientists have learned to plan measurements so that a microscope yields more information with the same amount of light.

A fluorescence microscope is like a photographer shooting in the dark: the more frames, the better the view, but each frame costs photons. In a living cell, the supply is limited, otherwise the light would simply kill the sample. So scientists proposed not to increase the number of photons, but to choose more wisely when to catch them.

Instead of taking evenly spaced shots at regular intervals, like a burst mode, the method adjusts the pauses between frames, just as an experienced photographer waits for the right expression.

To do this, they built a mathematical model that estimates how much information each measurement will bring. It turned out that if you account for possible disturbances in advance (instrument jitter, background light, signal blur) the shooting plan becomes more robust. Then even with scarce light, the image turns out sharper, and the details of cell life are more clearly visible.

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Fluorescent proteins that glow in cells were first isolated from jellyfish, and for this, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 2008.

Scientists

Ludwig Boltzmann Willebrord Snellius William Borucki

Concepts

photonic integrated circuit photon efficiency Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection information criterion fisher information

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Getting the Most Out of Every Photon express