Ultrafast Fiber Lasers for Multiphoton Microscopy
PhotonicsViews 4/2019
; See moreAlcor
COMPACT HIGH-POWER FEMTOSECOND LASER
780, 920, 1040 and 1064 nm / < 100 fs / Up to 5 W
Spark Lasers’ ALCOR is specifically designed for two-photon excitation. It offers clean femtosecond pulses with the highest guaranteed peak power on the market, in an unprecedented compact format and with fixed wavelengths at 780, 920, 1040 and 1064 nm.
In multiphoton microscopy, high laser peak power is required to achieve high image brightness. In laser technology, high peak power is provided by the combination of high pulse energy, short pulse duration and clean pulses. Two-photon fluorescence increases quadratically with average power, meaning that high average power is also key to achieve high brightness. For instance, an average power of 2 W will produce 4 times more fluorescence than 1 W.
Spark Lasers introduced HPC® Technology (High Pulse Contrast) to provide maximum peak power to and achieve optimal image brightness in two-photon microscopy systems. HPC® exploits fiber laser technologies to clean and shorten pulses while increasing average power. This way, ultimate peak power with remarkable average power can be produced efficiently and in a compact fiber laser.
HPC® Technology is incorporated in ALCOR 920 to offer 1.5 W or 2.5 W average power with clean pulses of < 100 fs in duration.
HPC® technology (High Pulse Contrast) increases power while cleaning pulses.
The compact laser head of ALCOR incorporates the widest range of computer controlled GDD precompensation on the market and, optionally, a fully aligned and turn-key AOM for fast power modulation and power adjustment.
ALCOR can also be coupled to an optical fiber to deliver femtosecond pulses as close as possible to samples.
ALCOR offers air cooling and ease of integration with the possibility to install the laser head in any orientation. ALCOR’s innovative fiber-based design offers high stability, high reliability without any maintenance, making it the perfect industrial laser for scientific applications.
Key Features
Short <100 fs pulses
High power up to 5 W
Integrated computer controlled GDD precompensation
Integrated AOM
Fiber delivery
No maintenance
Fan-less laser head
Useability
Reduced footprint
Various mounting orientations
Air-cooled
Download
ALCOR TECHNICAL DRAWINGS Rack 3U
ALCOR TECHNICAL DRAWINGS MODULE SHG
| ALCOR | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General | ALCOR 780 | ALCOR 920-1 | ALCOR 920-2 | ALCOR 920-4 | ALCOR 1064-2 or ALCOR 1040-2 |
ALCOR 1064-5 or ALCOR 1040-5 |
| Wavelength | 780 nm | 920 nm | 1064 nm or 1040 nm | |||
| Average power | 0.8 W | 1.5 W | 2.5 W | 4 W | 2 W | 5 W |
| Pulse duration | < 150 fs | < 100 fs | < 130 fs | < 100 fs | < 120 fs | |
| Group Delay Dispersion | Computer controled from 0 to -60 000 fs² | |||||
| Repetition rate | 80 +/- 2 MHz | |||||
| M² | < 1.2 | < 1.3 | < 1.2 | |||
| Option XSight (Integrated AOM for fine power control and fast power modulation) | ||||||
| Transmission | > 85% | |||||
| ON/OFF response time | < 1 µs (rise or fall time < 200 ns) | |||||
| Analog modulation bandwidth | > 1 MHz (input : 0-5 Volts, 1 kOhm) | |||||
| Power control | Computer controlled from 0 to 100%, alignment mode | |||||
| Option FLeX (Fiber delivery) | ||||||
| Fiber length | 2 meters | |||||
| Transmission | > 60% | |||||
| Pulse duration | < 150 fs | < 100 fs | < 130 fs | < 100 fs | < 120 fs | |
| Other options | ||||||
| DUAL | N/A | 2 independently controlled laser heads operating at 920 and 1064 or 1040 nm | ||||
| GDD extension | Computer controlled from 0 to -90 000 fs² | |||||
| Wavelength | Other wavelengths on request | |||||
| Repetition rate | Any fixed frequency from 30MHz to 80 MHz | from 40 MHz to 80 MHz | ||||
| Frequency conversion | N/A | 460 nm | 532 nm or 520 nm | |||
PRODUCT VIDEOS
They trust us
ALCOR 920 nm laser is suitable for in vivo two-photon imaging of mouse brain. It enables us to record green calcium signals of visually-evoked soma, dendrite and even spine activities of V1 neurons with high contrast by the aid of pre-installed GVD compensation module. Miniaturized and low maintenance lasers have been long awaited in the field of two-photon imaging.
Satoru Kondo, Ph.D., Division of Imaging Core, International Research Center for Neurointelligence, Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo« The ALCOR 920 LASER (with integrated GDD pre-compensator and XSight AOM) , is a compact, versatile and powerful tool for 2-photon excitation/activation and multi-photon laser ablation in biological samples. »
« Its compactness, ease of installation, fast warmup, great beam and pulse characteristics make the air-cooled ALCOR 920 a hard to beat laser source for two-photon imaging involving green fluorescent proteins (GCaMP-based calcium imaging in particular) or 2P photostimulation using blue light-sensitive opsins (e.g., Chr2). On top of that, it readily compensates for the group delay dispersion introduced by AO deflectors, hence SPARKS LASERS' ALCOR 920 is especially well suited and qualified by Femtonics to be designed-in the 3D acousto-optic (AO) microscopes, such as the FEMTO3D Atlas developed and solely provided by Femtonics. »
