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Taking Two-Photon Excitation to Exceptional Path-Lengths in Photonic Crystal Fiber

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Williams, GOS 
Euser, TG 
Arlt, J 
Russell, PSJ 
Jones, AC 

Abstract

The well-known, defining feature of two-photon excitation (TPE) is the tight, three-dimensional confinement of excitation at the intense focus of a laser beam. The extremely small excitation volume, on the order of 1 μm3 (1 femtoliter), is the basis of far-reaching applications of TPE in fluorescence imaging, photodynamic therapy, nanofabrication, and three-dimensional optical memory. Paradoxically, the difficulty of detecting photochemical events in such a small volume is a barrier to the development of the two-photon-activated molecular systems that are essential to the realization of such applications. We show, using two-photon-excited fluorescence to directly visualize the excitation path, that confinement of both laser beam and sample solution within the 20 μm hollow core of a photonic crystal fiber permits TPE to be sustained over an extraordinary path-length of more than 10 cm, presenting a new experimental paradigm for ultrasensitive studies of two-photon-induced processes in solution. (Figure Presented).

Description

Keywords

two-photon absorption, two-photon cross-section, nonlinear optics, fluorescence, photochemistry, optofluidics

Journal Title

ACS Photonics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2330-4022
2330-4022

Volume Title

1

Publisher

ACS
Sponsorship
We are grateful to the Koerber Foundation (Germany) and the EPSRC (UK) for financial support. G.O.S.W. is a recipient of an EPSRC Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship