We describe a stand alone CARS module allowing upgrade of a two-photon microscope with CARS modality. The Stokes beam is generated in a commercially available photonic crystal fiber (PCF) using fraction of the power of femtosecond excitation laser. The output of the fiber is optimized for broadband CARS at Stokes shifts in 2900cm-1 region. The spectral resolution in CARS signal is 50 cm-1. It is achieved by introducing a bandpass filter in the pump beam. The timing between the pump and Stokes pulses is preset inside the module and can be varied. We demonstrate utility of the device on examples of second harmonic, two-photon fluorescence and CARS images of several biological and non-biological samples. We also present results of studies where we used CARS modality to monitor in real time the process of fabrication of microstructures by two-photon polymerization.

Date Published: 11 February 2011
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 7903, Multiphoton Microscopy in the Biomedical Sciences XI, 79030Z (11 February 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.872912

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7903:
Multiphoton Microscopy in the Biomedical Sciences XI
Ammasi Periasamy; Karsten König; Peter T. C. So, Editor(s)