Far field optical nanoscopy: How far can you go in nanometric characterization without resolving all the details?

In the development of nanomaterials and biomaterials, new characterization techniques are required that overcome the challenges presented by the increasing dimensional ratio between the different entities to be studied and the growing complexity introduced by the use of heterogeneous materials and technologies. Diffraction limited far field optical nanoscopy techniques are receiving growing interest because of their ability to detect nanometer structures over very large fields and at high speed. We present a classification scheme of the different types of optical nanoscopy techniques. In particular, we highlight four categories of far field diffraction limited techniques based on increasing the contrast, measuring the phase, using deconvolution and using nano-markers. We demonstrate that by increasing the power of detectability, observability or measurability, a wealth of information concerning nanometric structures becomes available even though all the lateral details may not be resolved. For example, it is possible to determine the presence, the structure and orientation of nanostructures, to measure their density, position and 2D and 3D distribution and to measure nanometric surface roughness in bulk materials, surfaces, nano-layers, soft matter and cells. These techniques conserve all the advantages associated with classical imaging such as real time imaging, non-invasiveness, non-destructiveness and ease of use.