Mitochondria are crucial organelles for life and death of the cell: they integrate diverse signalling cascades and amplify apoptosis. The functional versatility of the organelle is matched by its structural complexity, continuously remodelled by fusion and fission events controlled by “mitochondria-shaping” proteins. Several genetic diseases are associated with mutations in mitochondrial fission and fusion proteins, therefore underlining their importance in pathophysiology. So far, our knowledge of how the processes of mitochondrial fusion and fission occur in living cells is limited, since the size of the organelle and its subcompartments exceeds the resolution power of optical microscopy. In particular, very little is known of the molecular and biophysical details of the coordination of the processes of mitochondrial fusion, fission and apoptosis. Super-resolution microscopy like photoactivated light microscopy (PALM) can break the optical resolution barrier allowing in principle imaging of submitochondrial fusion and fission processes. However, time resolution is far too distant from the scale of the biological processes, limiting the use of super-resolution microscopy to fixed samples. In this Thesis we will present our approach towards the disruption of the time barrier by combination of niobate nanowires and PALM as well as preliminary data on the targeting of appropriate photo-activatable fluorescent to different mitochondrial subcompartments that will enable mitochondrial PALM imaging during life and apoptosis.