  Fundamental to all living organisms and living soft matter are emergent
processes in which the reorganization of individual constituents at the
nanoscale drives group-level movements and shape changes at the macroscale over
time. However, light-induced degradation of fluorophores, photobleaching, is a
significant problem in extended live cell imaging in life science, and
excellent prior arts of STED, MINSTED, or MINFLUX intentionally apply
photobleaching optics for super-resolution, yet lack extended live-cell imaging
capability as fluorophores reach an irreversible photobleaching limit. Here, we
report an innovative way of opening a long-time investigation window of living
matter by a nonbleaching phase intensity nanoscope: PINE. We accomplish
phase-intensity separation to obtain phase differences between electric field
components, such that nanoprobes within a diffraction limited region are
distinguished from one another by an integrated phase-intensity multilayer thin
film (polyvinyl alcohol/liquid crystal). We obtain distributional patterns of
precisely localized nanoprobes to overcome a physical limit to resolve sub-10
nm cellular architectures, and achieve the first dynamic imaging of nanoscopic
reorganization over 250 hours using nonbleaching PINE. Since PINE allows a
long-time investigation window, we discover nanoscopic rearrangements
synchronized with the emergence of group-level movements and shape changes at
the macroscale according to a set of interaction rules. We believe that PINE
and its application presented here provide a mechanistic understanding of
emergent dynamics important in cellular and soft matter reorganization,
self-organization, and pattern formation.
