Sensitivity enhancement of fiber-laser-based stimulated Raman scattering microscopy by collinear balanced detection technique

We propose the collinear balanced detection (CBD) technique for noise suppression in fiber laser (FL)-based stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy. This technique reduces the effect of laser intensity noise at a specific frequency by means of pulse splitting and recombination with a time delay...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics express 2012-06, Vol.20 (13), p.13958-13965
Main Authors: Nose, Keisuke, Ozeki, Yasuyuki, Kishi, Tatsuya, Sumimura, Kazuhiko, Nishizawa, Norihiko, Fukui, Kiichi, Kanematsu, Yasuo, Itoh, Kazuyoshi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Equipment Design
Equipment Failure Analysis
Fiber Optic Technology - instrumentation
Image Enhancement - instrumentation
Lasers
Microscopy - instrumentation
Reproducibility of Results
Sensitivity and Specificity
Spectrum Analysis, Raman - instrumentation
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Summary:We propose the collinear balanced detection (CBD) technique for noise suppression in fiber laser (FL)-based stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy. This technique reduces the effect of laser intensity noise at a specific frequency by means of pulse splitting and recombination with a time delay difference. We experimentally confirm that CBD can suppress the intensity noise of second harmonic (SH) of Er-FL pulses by 13 dB.The measured noise level including the thermal noise is higher by only ~1.4 dB than the shot noise limit. To demonstrate SRS imaging, we use 4-ps SH pulses and 3-ps Yb-FL pulses, which are synchronized subharmonically with a jitter of 227 fs. The effectiveness of the CBD technique is confirmed through SRS imaging of a cultured HeLa cell.
ISSN:1094-4087
DOI:10.1364/OE.20.013958