T3D 3-D 3rd harminic image (fwd)

["John Goodman" <jgood@xxxxxxxx>]

-fwd- from [AIP listserver <physnews@xxxxxxx>] :

The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
Number 431 June 2, 1999   by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein
     
THIRD-HARMONIC MICROSCOPE.  Imaging biological
samples often involves telling apart one wet thing from another.  A
relatively new way of gaining the needed contrast is to exploit the
nonlinear optical features of the sample itself by using a process in
which a high-power laser beam can, when it is brought to a tight
focus in certain media, generate subsidiary light waves at twice the
original frequency (second harmonic), three times the frequency
(third harmonic), and so on. If the detector is sensitive to just the
third harmonic radiation, say, then by scanning the laser focus
across the face of the sample, an image can be built up with a
spatial resolution as small as the focal size.  Jeff Squier at UC San
Diego (619-534-0290, jsquier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) and his colleagues
have used this scheme to produce the first 3-dimensional third-
harmonic image of a living system. (Paper JTuA2, May 25, at the
electro-optics and quantum electronics meeting in Baltimore; see
figure at www.aip.org/physnews/graphics.)


The main URL above also has a subcription link, I believe.

JG


------------------------------