Compact fixed wavelength femtosecond oscillators for multi-photon imaging

In recent years two-photon microscopy with fixed-wavelength has raised increasing interest in life-sciences: Two-photon (2P) absorption spectra of common dyes are broader than single-photon ones. Therefore, excitation of several dyes simultaneously with a single IR laser wavelength is feasible and could be seen as an advantage in 2P microscopy. We used pulsed fixed-wavelength infrared lasers with center wavelength at 1040 nm, for two-photon microscopy in a variety of biologically relevant samples, among these a mouse brain sample, a mouse artery (within the animal, acute preparation), and a preparation of mouse bladder. The 1040 nm laser proved to be efficient not only in exciting fluorescence from yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) and red fluorescent dyes, but also for second harmonic generation (SHG) signals from muscle tissue and collagen. With this work we demonstrate that economical, small-footprint fixedwavelength lasers can present an interesting alternative to tunable lasers that are commonly used in multiphoton microscopy.