iSTORM super-resolution microscopes are mainly suitable for experiments and observation in laboratories, institutes and hospitals. Samples are widely used in molecular cell biology, neurobiology, immunology, pharmacology and other fields to study fixed cells, tissues, bacteria, yeast, and viruses, and iSTORM Live Cell Edition can also perform live-cell related imaging.

Fluorescent dyes are excited into the emitting state, after which they enter the dark state, where they combine with free oxygen and enter the bleached state. In the bleached state, the dye does not fluoresce again. If the dye is not allowed to bind to free oxygen, it will not be able to enter the bleached state and remain in a dark state. The high-power excitation light can cause the dye to re-enter the emitted state from the dark state. This state switch from light to dark to light looks like the dye is "blinking". STORM performs super-resolution localization by randomly "lighting up" the target molecule in batches. In this way, each active fluorescence group is resolved and their images are separated from other molecules without overlapping. In this way, the exact position of the group is determined, and the process is repeated many times, each time randomly opening the different subunits of the fluorophore, obtaining an image, determining the position of each subunit, and reconstructing the above image into a super-resolution image.