US Patent 7929132 - Nanoparticle fluorescence microscopy

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7929132.html

This patent from the University of Utah Research Foundation teaches a method to improve the clarity and resolution of optical microscopes by including metal nanoparticles in a sample. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for performing transmission microscopy on a sample material, the method comprising:

placing a sample material adjacent to a substrate comprising one or more nanoparticles;

exciting the one or more nanoparticles to cause the one or more nanoparticles to emit white light;

passing the emitted white light through the sample material; and

detecting the emitted white light that passed through the sample material.