April 20, 2015
The CANDLE Photon Beam & Optics group has designed and successfully implemented a new laser beam delivery scheme, which allows to simultaneously operate the two-photon laser scanning microscope with either AREAL laser driven electron linac or microfabrication station at DELTA laboratory. The re-alignment of the optics in the new scheme allowed to maintain the laser original high energy level of 1.7 mJ and 340 uJ for infrared (IR) amplified and Ultraviolet (UV) converted pulses, respectively.
The beam of ultrashort IR pulses reflected from a 50/50 beam-splitter guides the half of the laser power (~700 mW) from the high-repetition rate oscillator to the microscopy station. The transmitted beam is amplified with the regenerative amplifier. The amplified high-energy IR is then directed either to microfabrication station or UV-converter to drive AREAL electron linac.
The (biological) samples under the microscope objective, thus, can be excited with IR peak intensities of up to ~10^13 W/cm2. The laser intensity can be controlled by the new set-up with motor-driven attenuator at the entrance of the microscope in line with the experimental requirements.