A 20 MHz Repetition Rate, Sub-Picosecond Ti-Sapphire Laser for Fiber Delivery in Nonlinear Microscopy of the Skin

Nonlinear microscopy (NM) enables us to investigate the morphology or monitor the physiological processes of the skin through the use of ultrafast lasers. Fiber (or fiber-coupled) lasers are of great interest because they can easily be combined with a handheld, scanning nonlinear microscope. This latter feature greatly increases the utility of NM for pre-clinical applications and in vivo tissue imaging. Here, we present a fiber-coupled, sub-ps Ti-sapphire laser system being optimized for in vivo, stain-free, 3D imaging of skin alterations with a low thermal load of the skin. The laser is pumped by a low-cost, 2.1 W, 532 nm pump laser and delivers 0.5-1 ps, high-peak-power pulses at a ~20 MHz repetition rate. The spectral bandwidth of the laser is below 2 nm, which results in a low sensitivity for dispersion during fiber delivery. The reduction in the peak intensity due to the increased pulse duration is compensated by the lower repetition rate of our laser. In our proof-of-concept imaging experiments, a ~1.8 m long, commercial hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber was used for fiber delivery. Fresh and frozen skin biopsies of different skin alterations (e.g., adult hemangioma, basal cell cancer) and an unaffected control were used for high-quality, two-photon excitation fluorescence microscopy (2PEF) and second-harmonic generation (SHG) z-stack (3D) imaging.