Abstract
Multiphoton microscopes employ femtosecond lasers as light sources
because the high peak power of the ultrashort pulse allows for
multiphoton excitation of fluorescence in the examined sample.
However, such short pulses are susceptible to broadening in a
microscope’s highly dispersive optical elements and require
careful dispersion management, otherwise decreasing excitation
efficiency. Here, we have developed a 10 nJ Yb:fiber picosecond laser
with an integrated pulse picker unit and evaluated its performance in
multiphoton microscopy. Our results show that performance comparable
to femtosecond pulses can be obtained with picosecond pulses only by
reducing the pulse repetition rate and that such pulses are
significantly less prone to the effect of chromatic dispersion. These
findings proved that the temporal pulse compression is not always
efficient, and it can be omitted by using a smaller and easier-to-use
all-fiber setup.