Visible continuum pulses based on enhanced dispersive wave generation for endogenous fluorescence imaging

Quan Cui; Zhongyun Chen; Qian Liu; Zhihong Zhang; Qingming Luo; Ling Fu

doi:10.1364/BOE.8.004026

Visible continuum pulses based on enhanced dispersive wave generation for endogenous fluorescence imaging

Biomed Opt Express. 2017 Aug 7;8(9):4026-4036. doi: 10.1364/BOE.8.004026. eCollection 2017 Sep 1.

Authors

Quan Cui^{1

2}, Zhongyun Chen^{1

2}, Qian Liu^{1

2}, Zhihong Zhang^{1

2}, Qingming Luo^{1

2}, Ling Fu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China.
² Britton Chance Center and MOE Key Laboratory for Biomedical Photonics, School of Engineering Sciences, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China.

Abstract

In this study, we demonstrate endogenous fluorescence imaging using visible continuum pulses based on 100-fs Ti:sapphire oscillator and a nonlinear photonic crystal fiber. Broadband (500-700 nm) and high-power (150 mW) continuum pulses are generated through enhanced dispersive wave generation by pumping femtosecond pulses at the anomalous dispersion region near zero-dispersion wavelength of high-nonlinear photonic crystal fibers. We also minimize the continuum pulse width by determining the proper fiber length. The visible-wavelength two-photon microscopy produces NADH and tryptophan images of mice tissues simultaneously. Our 500-700 nm continuum pulses support extending nonlinear microscopy to visible wavelength range that is inaccessible to 100-fs Ti:sapphire oscillators and other applications requiring visible laser pulses.

Keywords: (060.4370) Nonlinear optics, fibers; (180.2520) Fluorescence microscopy; (180.4315) Nonlinear microscopy.