Amplitude and phase images of cellular structures with a scanning surface plasmon microscope

Imaging cellular internal structure at nanometer scale axial resolution with non invasive microscopy techniques has been a major technical challenge since the nineties. We propose here a complement to fluorescence based microscopies with no need of staining the biological samples, based on a Scanning Surface Plasmon Microscope (SSPM). We describe the advantages of this microscope, namely the possibility of both amplitude and phase imaging and, due to evanescent field enhancement by the surface plasmon resonance, a very high resolution in Z scanning (Z being the axis normal to the sample). We show for fibroblast cells (IMR90) that SSPM offers an enhanced detection of index gradient regions, and we conclude it is very well suited to discriminate regions of variable density in biological media such as cell compartments, nucleus, nucleoli and membranes.