The performance of two different photonic crystal fibers (PCF) of identical lengths for implementation of the Stokes source in a multimodal CARS microscopy and spectroscopy setup is compared. RIN measurements are performed to experimentally determine the noise in the supercontinuum from the two fibers as well as in the CARS signal under similar excitation conditions of the input pulse into the PCF. The RIN of the CARS signal is found to be higher than the RIN of the corresponding Stokes signal, in both fibers. The implications for CARS microscopy of the SC spectrum and its noise dependence on input pulse conditions in both fibers, are discussed.

Date Published: 26 February 2010
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 7569, Multiphoton Microscopy in the Biomedical Sciences X, 75692S (26 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.842758

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7569:
Multiphoton Microscopy in the Biomedical Sciences X
Ammasi Periasamy; Peter T. C. So; Karsten König, Editor(s)