Open AccessOptimizing pulse compressibility in completely all-fibered Ytterbium chirped pulse amplifiers for in vivo two photon laser scanning microscopy
Author(s) -
A. Fernández,
L. Grüner-Nielsen,
Marco Andreana,
Manuela Stadler,
Stefanie Kirchberger,
Caterina Sturtzel,
Martin Distel,
Lingxiao Zhu,
Wolfgang Kautek,
Rainer A. Leitgeb,
Andrius Baltuška,
Kim G. Jespersen,
A. J. Verhoef
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
biomedical optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.362
H-Index - 86
ISSN - 2156-7085
DOI - 10.1364/boe.8.003526
Subject(s) - optics , materials science , femtosecond , laser , microscopy , two photon excitation microscopy , ultrashort pulse , microscope , photonic crystal fiber , fiber laser , multi mode optical fiber , optical fiber , optoelectronics , fluorescence , physics
A simple and completely all-fiber Yb chirped pulse amplifier that uses a dispersion matched fiber stretcher and a spliced-on hollow core photonic bandgap fiber compressor is applied in nonlinear optical microscopy. This stretching-compression approach improves compressibility and helps to maximize the fluorescence signal in two-photon laser scanning microscopy as compared with approaches that use standard single mode fibers as stretcher. We also show that in femtosecond all-fiber systems, compensation of higher order dispersion terms is relevant even for pulses with relatively narrow bandwidths for applications relying on nonlinear optical effects. The completely all-fiber system was applied to image green fluorescent beads, a stained lily-of-the-valley root and rat-tail tendon. We also demonstrated in vivo imaging in zebrafish larvae, where we simultaneously measure second harmonic and fluorescence from two-photon excited red-fluorescent protein. Since the pulses are compressed in a fiber, this source is especially suited for upgrading existing laser scanning (confocal) microscopes with multiphoton imaging capabilities in space restricted settings or for incorporation in endoscope-based microscopy.