Laser source apparatus and laser microscope

摘要

Provided is a laser source apparatus including a single laser source that emits an ultrashort-pulse laser beam; a wavelength conversion mechanism that generates a plurality of pulsed laser beams having different wavelengths by converting at least a part of wavelength of the ultrashort-pulse laser beam; a dispersion adjusting section that adjusts the amount of frequency dispersion for each of the pulsed laser beams; and an introducing optics that emits the plurality of pulsed laser beams whose frequency dispersion amounts are adjusted by the dispersion adjusting section. The dispersion adjusting section adjusts the amount of frequency dispersion for each of the pulsed laser beams so that each of the pulsed laser beams introduced to the irradiation optics of the optical apparatus from the introducing optics to excite a specimen is close to a substantially Fourier-transform-limited pulse.

主权项

1. A laser source apparatus for an optical apparatus that is provided with an irradiation optics which irradiates a specimen, the laser source apparatus comprising:
a single laser source that emits an ultrashort-pulse laser beam; a splitting device that splits the ultrashort-pulse laser beam emitted from the laser source into two first pulsed laser beams; a wavelength conversion device that converts a wavelength of one of the two first pulsed laser beams obtained by the splitting by the splitting device, to generate at least one second pulsed laser beam having a wavelength different from the wavelength of said one first pulsed laser beam; a first dispersion-compensating optics that is disposed in a light path of the other of the two first pulsed laser beams obtained by the splitting by the splitting device and that applies negative frequency dispersion to said other first pulsed laser beam such that said other first pulsed laser beam is close to a substantially Fourier-transform-limited pulse at the specimen, wherein a wavelength of said other first pulsed laser beam is not converted; a second dispersion-compensating optics that is disposed in a light path of the at least one second pulsed laser beam generated by the wavelength conversion device and that applies negative frequency dispersion to the second pulsed laser beam such that the second pulsed laser beam is close to a substantially Fourier-transform-limited pulse at the specimen; and an introducing optics that comprises a beam combining device which combines said other first pulsed laser beam to which negative frequency dispersion is applied by the first dispersion-compensating optics and the at least one second pulsed laser beam to which negative frequency dispersion is applied by the second dispersion-compensating optics, and that emits to the irradiation optics of the optical apparatus a third pulsed laser beam obtained by the combining using the beam combining device; wherein the wavelength conversion device comprises: a second harmonic generation device that converts said one first pulsed laser beam to generate a laser beam whose wavelength is half the wavelength of said one first pulsed laser beam and that outputs the laser beam; and an optical parametric oscillator that generates the at least one second pulsed laser beam by converting the wavelength of the laser beam output from the second harmonic generation device.