White light sources have allowed users to illuminate, interrogate, and excite biological materials and chemicals for several hundred years. Traditionally, filament or gas discharge lamps have been used and they are today supplemented by LEDs and other white light sources. However, the output power and/or bandwidth of these sources remain inadequate for many applications.
Lasers provide excellent beam quality and power but they are inherently single wavelength devices. To address several wavelengths one must combine a number of lasers adding cost and complexity. Moreover, only certain discrete wavelengths are available.
The supercontinuum white-light laser combines the broadband nature of the lamp with the power and robustness of a laser and has been used in bio-photonics since their introduction to the market by NKT Photonics in 2003.
A supercontinuum laser typically provides a continuous output in the entire 400-2400nm range and by filtering one can address any part of the spectrum individually. The diffraction-limited output is fiber delivered with a typical spectral density of several mW/nm – many orders of magnitude brighter than lamp-based sources and the total power can reach several Watt.
Since supercontinuum lasers are monolithic fiber lasers, they require no alignment or service and NKTs sources have lifetimes exceeding thousands of hours.
Hyperspectral imaging is the simultaneous collection of quantitative spatial and spectral information. It is becoming an essential technique in many applications from food and recycling sorting to medical imaging and semiconductor metrology. Read more
Ultra-high resolution Optical Coherence Tomography (UHR-OCT) is an invaluable tool that enables micron-scale cross-sectional or 3D imaging of a subject. It is relevant for various applications, from analysis of tissue in medical applications to visualization of sub-micron structures in manufacturing. Read more
Fluorescence Microscopy allows highly specific imaging of cellular compartments in a minimally invasive fashion while obtaining the highest contrast. However, conventional microscopes are limited in their resolution due to the diffraction barrier. In the past decades, several different approaches have shown the ability to circumvent the diffraction limit by either switching on and off single fluorophores, utilizing structured illumination, optical fluctuation or alternatively depleting excited chromophores from the excitation volume.
This document provides a quick overview of the STED technique introduced by Stefan W. Hell in 1994. NKT Photonics’ SuperK and Onefive KATANA HP lasers are a perfect combination to realize flexible pulsed excitation as well as synchronized depletion within the visible and near-infrared range. Read more
Ophthalmic imaging is the branch of ophthalmology that deals with imaging of the eye diagnosing the anatomy, physiology and diseases of the eye. Read more
