Autocorrelator for multiphoton microscopy

摘要

Multiphoton microscopy is a relatively new and rapidly growing field of applied optics where Ti:Sapphire ultrafast laser sources and related technology find a wide application. Laser beam diagnostic techniques specially devoted to this kind of application has been widely developed in these last years. Research efforts have been addressed to the evaluation and the eventual correction of the laser pulse duration widening due to group velocity dispersion caused by the microscope optics. Temporal characterization is thus a fundamental task when operating a ultrafast laser system for multiphoton microscopy applications and it is carried out by means of autocorrelators specially designed to perform pulse width measurements at the focus of the microscope objective. In the present communication, an innovative autocorrelator setup and a simple metrological procedure are reported.