Program

Fluorescence laser-scanning microscopy is a central tool for investigating biological systems, enabling the visualisation and quantification of molecular processes in living cells and tissues. Recent advances in single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) array detectors are opening new opportunities for fluorescence microscopy by enabling the detection of individual photons with high temporal precision and parallel spatial readout. While these detectors provide an ideal platform for techniques such as image scanning microscopy, their capabilities extend far beyond improving spatial resolution. In this lecture, I will discuss how SPAD array detectors enable a broader framework of photon-resolved microscopy, in which each detected photon carries spatial, temporal, and statistical information. This capability provides a powerful way to enhance and extend established fluorescence measurement modalities, including fluorescence lifetime imaging, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, single-molecule tracking, and nanoscopy techniques such as STED and MINFLUX. By capturing and analysing photon streams, SPAD array detectors enable these methods to be implemented with improved versatility, robustness, information content, and measurement efficiency, opening new directions for quantitative biological imaging.