Translational Biophotonics Cluster, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115, USA.
Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115, USA.
Sci Rep. 2019 Mar 12;9(1):4233. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-40871-5.
Solid-state femtosecond lasers have stimulated the broad adoption of multiphoton microscopy in the modern laboratory. However, these devices remain costly. Fiber lasers offer promise as a means to inexpensively produce ultrashort pulses of light suitable for nonlinear microscopy in compact, robust and portable devices. Although encouraging, the initial methods reported in the biomedical engineering community to construct home-built femtosecond fiber laser systems overlooked fundamental aspects that compromised performance and misrepresented the significant financial and intellectual investments required to build these devices. Here, we present a practical protocol to fabricate an all-normal-dispersion ytterbium (Yb)-doped femtosecond fiber laser oscillator using commercially-available parts (plus standard optical components and extra-cavity accessories) as well as basic fiber splicing and laser pulse characterization equipment. We also provide a synthesis of established protocols in the laser physics community, but often overlooked in other fields, to verify true versus seemingly (partial or noise-like) mode-locked performance. The approaches described here make custom fabrication of femtosecond fiber lasers more accessible to a wide range of investigators and better represent the investments required for the proper laser design, fabrication and operation.
固态飞秒激光器激发了多光子显微镜在现代实验室中的广泛应用。然而，这些设备仍然很昂贵。光纤激光器有望成为一种在紧凑、坚固和便携式设备中产生适合非线性显微镜的廉价超短光脉冲的手段。尽管令人鼓舞，但最初在生物医学工程领域报道的构建自制飞秒光纤激光系统的方法忽略了一些基本方面，这些方面影响了性能，并错误地代表了构建这些设备所需的重大财务和智力投资。在这里，我们提出了一种实用的方案，使用市售部件（外加标准光学元件和腔外附件）以及基本的光纤熔接和激光脉冲特性化设备来制造全正色散掺镱（Yb）飞秒光纤激光振荡器。我们还综合了激光物理领域中已建立的协议，但在其他领域中经常被忽略，以验证真正的与看似（部分或噪声样）锁模性能。这里描述的方法使飞秒光纤激光器的定制制造更容易为更广泛的研究人员所接受，并更好地代表了适当的激光设计、制造和操作所需的投资。
