Shorter pulses, in theory, should be favorable in nonlinear microscopy and yield stronger signals. However, shorter
pulses are much more prone to chromatic dispersion when passing through the microscope objective, which significantly
broadens its pulse duration and cancels the expected signal gain. In this paper, multiphoton intrapulse interference phase
scan (MIIPS) was used to compensate chromatic dispersion introduced by the 1.45 NA objective. The results show that
with MIIPS compensation, the increased signal is realized. We also find that third and higher order dispersion
compensation, which cannot be corrected by prism pairs, is responsible for an additional factor of 4.7 signal gain.
Ultrashort <15 fs pulses are shown to provide higher fluorescence intensity, deeper sample penetration, and
single laser selective excitation. To realize these advantages chromatic dispersion effects must be
compensated. We use multiphoton intrapulse interference phase scan (MIIPS) to measure and then
eliminate high-order distortions on pulses with a bandwidth greater than 100nm FWHM. Once
compensated, the transform limited pulses deliver higher signal intensity, and this translates into deeper
optical penetration depth with a high signal-to-noise ratio. By using a pulse shaper and taking advantage of
the broad spectrum of the ultrafast laser, selective excitation of different cell organelles is observed due to
the difference in nonlinear optical susceptibility of different chromophores without the use of an emission
filter wheel.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.