Confocal microscopy has gained great popularity in the observation of biological microstructures and dynamic processes. Its resolution enhancement comes from shrinking the pinhole size, which, however, degrades imaging signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) severely. Recently developed super‐resolution method based on the pixel reassignment technique is capable of achieving a factor of 2 resolution improvement and further reaching twofold improvement by deconvolution, compared with the optical diffraction limit. More importantly, the approach allows better imaging SNR when its lateral resolution is similar to the standard confocal microscopy. Pixel reassignment can be realized both computationally and optically, but the optical realization demonstrates much faster acquisition of super‐resolution imaging. In this chapter, the development and advancement of super‐resolution confocal microscopy through the pixel realignment method are summarized, and its capabilities of imaging biological structures and interactions are represented.
Part of the book: Microscopy and Analysis