Not sure about being first, but metamaterials also go beyond the diffraction limit.

The smallest structures that conventional lenses are able to optically resolve are of the order of 200 nm. We introduce a new type of lens that exploits multiple scattering of light to generate a scanning nano-sized optical focus. With an experimental realization of this lens in gallium phosphide we have succeeded to image gold nanoparticles at 97 nm optical resolution. Our work is the first lens that provides a resolution in the nanometer regime at visible wavelengths.

2013-11-13: making microscopic images with visible light is limited by the diffraction limit, around 250nm. If you want to go smaller you have to use (often destructive) techniques like X-rays. This new technique can get to 30nm plus it makes beautiful pictures as a side effect.

2021-08-28: A 100x improvement in 10 years

Scientists have improved the spatial resolution from 8nm to 0.8nm of photoluminescence imaging. This has realized sub-molecular resolution with single molecule photofluorescence imaging for the first time.

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