Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy using a single-pass picosecond supercontinuum-seeded optical parametric amplifier

Opt Express. 2010 Mar 15;18(6):6116-22. doi: 10.1364/OE.18.006116.

Abstract

We have demonstrated coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy with a single-pass picosecond supercontinuum-seeded optical parametric amplifier (SCOPA). The SCOPA was pumped by a frequency-doubled picosecond passively mode-locked Nd:YVO(4) laser, and was seeded by a supercontinuum light source. Compared with the conventional experimental setups of CARS microscopy, our exposition is substantially simpler because the pump and Stokes lasers are overlapped in the SCOPA automatically and thus steered into a microscope coherently. The feasibility of this novel light source to CARS imaging was illustrated by acquiring the fundamental and overtone CARS images of the aromatic C-H stretching mode of polystyrene beads and an image of the pharynx of a C. elegans of the aliphatic C-H stretching mode.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amplifiers, Electronic*
  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Image Enhancement / instrumentation*
  • Microscopy / instrumentation*
  • Surface Plasmon Resonance / instrumentation*
  • Tomography, Optical Coherence / instrumentation