Three‐photon‐resonance‐enhanced third‐harmonic generation for label‐free deep‐brain imaging: In search of a chemical contrast

Abstract

Within the past decade, nonlinear Raman microscopy has earned a well‐deserved status of a gold‐standard technology for chemically selective imaging. Even though second‐ and third‐harmonic microscopy is much less demanding on a laser source and multifrequency beam arrangement, it is increasingly falling behind nonlinear Raman scattering as a method of bioimaging because it offers no mechanism whereby imaging could be made chemically specific. Here, we show, however, that such a mechanism does exist, helping harmonic‐generation microscopy overcome its no‐chemical‐specificity handicap. We demonstrate that, with the laser wavelength tuned to a three‐photon resonance with the Soret band of hemoglobin, third‐harmonic generation provides a chemically specific method for a high‐contrast imaging of red blood cells in a broad class of biological systems, including live brain. Moreover, third‐harmonic generation imaging can be conveniently combined with second‐harmonic microscopy on a compact laser platform, providing, as our experiments on rat brain show, a powerful resource for three‐dimensional, cell‐specific label‐free deep‐brain imaging.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2019
Source ID
10.1002/jrs.5566

Entities

People

  • Aleksandr A. Lanin
  • Aleksey Zheltikov
  • Andrei B. Fedotov
  • Artem S. Chebotarev
  • Ilya V Kelmanson
  • Matvey S. Pochechuev
  • Vsevolod V. Belousov

Organizations

  • Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry
  • Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
  • Moscow State University
  • National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Robert A. Welch Foundation
  • Russian Center for Science Information
  • Russian Quantum Center
  • Russian Science Foundation

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Educational Psychology
  • Nanoscale Plasmonic Nanotechnology
  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy