ABSTRACT
Nonlinear light-matter interactions have been successfully applied to create new visualization contrast mechanisms for optical microscopy. Nonlinear optical microscopy employs femtosecond and picosecond lasers to achieve a high photon flux density by focusing the beam onto a sample with a high numerical aperture (NA) microscope
I. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 71 II. Nonlinear Contrast Mechanisms in Microscopic Imaging ............................ 73
A. Nonlinear Light-Matter Interactions ...................................................... 73 B. Multiphoton Excitation Fluorescence ...................................................... 74 C. Second Harmonic Generation ................................................................. 76 D. Third Harmonic Generation ....................................................................77 E. Multicontrast Microscopy ....................................................................... 78
III. Instrumentation of the Multicontrast Nonlinear Microscope ......................... 79 A. The Microscope ...................................................................................... 81 B. Scanning and Detection Systems ............................................................ 82 C. Laser Sources .......................................................................................... 83
IV. Image Analysis Methods for Multicontrast Microscopy ................................85 A. Structural Cross-Correlation Image Analysis for Two Images ..........85 B. Structural Cross-Correlation Image Analysis for Three Images ........85
