Enhancing STED microscopy via fluorescence lifetime unmixing and filtering in two-species SPLIT-STED

Abstract Simultaneous super-resolution imaging of multiple fluorophores remains a major challenge in STimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy due to spectral overlap of STED-compatible fluorophores. The combination of STED microscopy and Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) offers a powerful alternative for super-resolved, multiplexed imaging of biological samples but is hindered by lifetime convergence at high depletion powers. Here, we present an analysis method, two-species Separation of Photons by LIfetime Tuning (SPLIT)-STED, that uses a linear system of equations in phasor-based STED-FLIM to enhance both fluorophore unmixing and spatial resolution. It defines the fluorescence signal as a mixture of three lifetime components: the two target fluorophores and a short-lifetime contribution from peripheral fluorescence photons. Two-species SPLIT-STED disentangles overlapping lifetimes and selectively filters low-resolution signal. The method enables accurate unmixing of spectrally overlapping fluorophores and, by enhancing resolution through lifetime-based filtering, allows the use of lower depletion powers, thereby improving fluorescence lifetime separation.