Dynamic fiber delivery of 3 W 160 fs pulses with photonic crystal hollow core fiber patchcord.

We report output characteristics of a connectorized hollow core photonics crystal fiber when it is subjected to coiling down to a 50 mm radius, bending, and torsion. We achieved coupling efficiency up to 73% with an output average power of 2 W and 24 nJ pulse energy. With optimized coupling, depolarization was as low as 7%. Coiling and bending of the photonic crystal patchcord introduces little distortion; torsion, however, changes the polarization drastically. To our knowledge, this is the first report on dynamic fiber delivery of fs pulses.

Multiphoton imaging with blue-diode-pumped SESAM-modelocked Ti:sapphire oscillator generating 5 nJ 82 fs pulses.

We report a directly blue diode pumped Ti:Sapphire oscillator that generates 5 nJ pulses. This is five times higher pulse energy than previously reported for a directly diode pumped Ti:sapphire laser. With 460 mW of average power at 92 MHz and 82 fs pulses, its peak power reaches 61 kW, also several times higher the value than previously published. Direct diode pumping significantly reduces the complexity and therefore the footprint and the cost of the laser, while SESAM modelocking ensures reliable selfstarting and robust operation. Such a laser is ideally suited for biomedical imaging and nanostructuring applications. As a demonstration of sufficient peak power for microscopy applications, we perform different modalities of nonlinear microscopy of biological samples.