Stimulated emission depletion (STED) nanoscopy is one of the most well-developed nanoscopy techniques that can provide subdiffraction spatial resolution imaging. Here, we introduce dual-modulation difference STED microscopy (dmdSTED) to suppress the background noise in traditional STED imaging. By applying respective time-domain modulations to the two continuous-wave lasers, signals are distributed discretely in the frequency spectrum and thus are obtained through lock-in demodulation of the corresponding frequencies. The background signals can be selectively eliminated from the effective signal without compromise of temporal resolution. We used nanoparticle, fixed cell, and perovskite coating experiments, as well as theoretical demonstration, to confirm the effectiveness of this method. We highlight dmdSTED as an idea and approach with simple implementation for improving the imaging quality, which substantially enlarges the versatility of STED nanoscopy.

Microlaser with multiple lasing bands is critical in various applications, such as full-color display, optical communications, and computing. Here, we propose a simple and efficient method for homogeneously doping rare earth elements into a silica whispering-gallery microcavity. By this method, an Er-Yb co-doped silica microsphere cavity with the highest quality (Q) factor (exceeding 10⁸) among the rare-earth-doped microcavities is fabricated to demonstrate simultaneous and stable lasing covering ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared bands under room temperature and a continuous-wave pump. The thresholds of all the lasing bands are estimated to be at the submilliwatt level, where both the ultraviolet and violet continuous wave upconversion lasing from rare earth elements has not been separately demonstrated under room temperature until this work. This ultrahigh-Q doped microcavity is an excellent platform for high-performance multiband microlasers, ultrahigh-precision sensors, optical memories, and cavity-enhanced light–matter interaction studies.