Hello all. I’m trying to revive a dSTORM system using 100mW 640 laser. Can I have some general suggestion on the laser power requirement at the sample plane for ground state depletion? Is 1-2 kW/cm2 measured at the sample plane enough? Or the higher the better? The laser spot diameter (1/e2) at the back focal plane is around 50um. Would it make sense to expand it further to achieve higher intensity at the sample plane? Thank you.
sure, in that you have it if you need it 
It’s really hard to answer these questions abstractly. It all depends on the application, the dyes, the buffers, etc… I think it’s safe to say that 1-2 kW/cm2 will probably be a bit limiting for some but not all applications?
If it’s what you have to work with, then you don’t have much of a choice right? I suspect you’ll find cases where you wish you had more. And yeah, you could try to introduce optics to concentrate your power in a subarea of field of view (trading irradiance for field of view), but again, too many variables to state broadly whether it’s going to work for you