Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10074957B2/en
Timestamp: 2018-11-15 07:21:41
Document Index: 196387909

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 119', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Art. 94', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08196413', 'Application No. 08196413', 'Application No. 08', 'art 3', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 38169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Art. 94', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Art. 94', 'Application No. 08169413', 'Application No. 08']

US10074957B2 - Variable repetition rate supercontinuum pulses - Google Patents
Variable repetition rate supercontinuum pulses Download PDF
US10074957B2
US10074957B2 US15431111 US201715431111A US10074957B2 US 10074957 B2 US10074957 B2 US 10074957B2 US 15431111 US15431111 US 15431111 US 201715431111 A US201715431111 A US 201715431111A US 10074957 B2 US10074957 B2 US 10074957B2
US15431111
US20170250518A1 (en )
A method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses can comprise generating optical pump pulses with an optical pump laser, the optical pump pulses having a pump pulse repetition rate; launching optical pump pulses into a nonlinear optical element comprising an optical fiber; generating optical supercontinuum pulses from the optical pump pules via spectral broadening within the optical fiber; selectively providing a plurality of different repetition rates for the optical pump pulses so as to generate optical supercontinuum pulses having different repetition rates; and providing nominally identical spectral broadening of the optical supercontinuum pules having the different repetition rates.
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/792,177, filed on 10 Mar. 2013 now U.S. Pat. No. 9,570,878, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/316,006, filed on Dec. 9, 2008 now U.S. Pat. No. 8,848,750, which claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 of Great Britain (GB) Patent Application Serial No. 0800936.7, filed in the United Kingdom on Jan. 19, 2008, which applications and patents are hereby incorporated by reference herein.
In conventional STED microscopes (see, e.g., G. Donnert et al., Proceedings of the Natural Academic Society U.S.A 103,11440-11445 (2006)) two lasers are used simultaneously, one (typically a Ti: Sapphire laser) with high optical intensity to form the STED beam and a second tunable visible laser to excite the fluorescence. Conventional supercontinuum lasers, based on modelocked fiber laser-pumped PCF's or Ti: Sapphire laser-pumped PCF's, are too low in pulse energy for STED. Using a reduced repetition rate and longer pulse according to the present invention, an optical pulse source is provided which is operable to generate supercontinuum pulses having a pulse energy spectral density approaching 1 nJ/nm, making this a suitable single-source solution for both fluorescence excitation and STED within a STED microscope.
In an alternative arrangement, the optical pulse source 40 of this embodiment may be operated with the low-power mode-locked fiber oscillator (pump laser) 41 generating pulses having a pulse duration of 200 ps Amplification within a fiber amplifier with nonlinear clamp on the peak power of approximately 40 KW, results in a corresponding maximum pump pulse energy of 80 (for example, 1 MHz, 8 W average power and 200 ps pulse duration). Supercontinuum pulses having a total supercontinuum pulse energy of approximately 20 and energy spectral density of approximately 1 nJ/nm are produced.
The AOTF 63 is also operable to amplitude control the output pulse intensities, which provides another degree of flexibility in optimising system performance This could, for example, balance the illumination intensities for optical pulses at different wavelengths to pre-compensate for different fluorescence levels from donor and acceptor fluorophores in FRET.
In this embodiment, a pulse-picked optical pulse source 40, as shown in FIG. 6, operating at a 5 MHz pulse repetition rate and a 10 m length of PCF 44, achieves the same visible power and spectral bandwidth but this results in a 5-Fold increase in spectral energy to 200 pJ/nm. Starting with a 200 ps optical pulse and a standard length of nonlinear fiber, it is possible to scale the spectral energy density to in excess of 1 nJ/nm at 1 MHz, with an average visible power of approximately 400 mW (over a 400 nm band) at 1 MHz.
1. A method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses, comprising:
generating optical pump pulses with an optical pump source;
launching optical pump pulses into a nonlinear optical element comprising an optical fiber;
generating optical supercontinuum pulses from the optical pump pulses via spectral broadening within the optical fiber;
selectively providing a plurality of different repetition rates for the optical pump pulses so as to generate optical supercontinuum pulses having different repetition rates; and
providing nominally identical spectral broadening of the optical pump pulses having the different repetition rates.
2. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 1, comprising using the optical supercontinuum pulses to provide illumination in an application to excite fluorescence.
3. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 2, comprising measuring a decay lifetime of the excited fluorescence.
4. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 2, wherein the application comprises fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM).
5. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 2, wherein the application comprises stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy.
6. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 1, comprising wavelength filtering the optical supercontinuum pulses at a predetermined wavelength.
7. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 1, comprising launching the optical pump pulses into the optical fiber without the use of free space optics.
8. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 1, comprising amplifying the optical pump pulses prior to launching the optical pump pulses into the nonlinear optical element.
9. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 8, wherein the amplified optical pump pulses have the plurality of different repetition rates prior to launching the amplified optical pump pulses into the nonlinear optical element.
10. A method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses, comprising:
generating optical pump pulses with an optical pump source, an optical pump pulse having a pulse energy;
wherein the pulse energy is fixed as the pulse to pulse separation is increased with reducing repetition rate.
11. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 10, comprising using the optical supercontinuum pulses to provide illumination in an application to excite fluorescence.
12. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 11, comprising measuring a decay lifetime of the excited fluorescence.
13. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 11, wherein the application is fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM).
14. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 11, wherein the application is stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy.
15. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 10, comprising wavelength filtering the optical supercontinuum pulses at a predetermined wavelength.
16. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 10, comprising launching the optical pump pulses into the optical fiber without the use of free space optics.
17. The method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses of claim 10, comprising amplifying the optical pump pulses prior to launching the pump pulses into the nonlinear optical element.
18. A supercontinuum pulse source, comprising:
an optical pump source for generating optical pump pulses;
the optical pump pulses having a selectively variable pump pulse repetition rate so that optical pump pulses can have different repetition rates;
a nonlinear optical element comprising an optical fiber arranged to receive the optical pump pulses and spectrally broaden the optical pump pulses to generate optical supercontinuum pulses;
wherein the optical pump pulses having different repetition rates generate optical supercontinuum pulses having different repetition rates; and
wherein optical pump pulses having different repetition rates are nominally identically spectrally broadened by the nonlinear optical element.
19. A supercontinuum pulse source, comprising:
an optical pump source operable to generate optical pump pulses, an optical pump pulse having a pump pulse energy;
the optical pump pulses further comprising a plurality of different repetition rates, wherein the optical pump pulses having different repetition rates generate optical supercontinuum pulses having different repetition rates;
wherein the optical pulse energy is fixed as the pulse to pulse separation is increased with reducing repetition rate.
US15431111 2008-01-19 2017-02-13 Variable repetition rate supercontinuum pulses Active US10074957B2 (en)
US13792177 US9570878B2 (en) 2008-01-19 2013-03-10 Method and apparatus for providing supercontinuum pulses
US15431111 US10074957B2 (en) 2008-01-19 2017-02-13 Variable repetition rate supercontinuum pulses
US13792177 Continuation US9570878B2 (en) 2008-01-19 2013-03-10 Method and apparatus for providing supercontinuum pulses
US20170250518A1 true US20170250518A1 (en) 2017-08-31
US10074957B2 true US10074957B2 (en) 2018-09-11
US15431111 Active US10074957B2 (en) 2008-01-19 2017-02-13 Variable repetition rate supercontinuum pulses
EP2992384A4 (en) * 2012-06-01 2017-02-22 NKT Photonics A/S A supercontinuum light source, a system and a method of measuring
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