High-resolution nonlinear ellipse rotation measurements for 3D microscopy

Abstract

Nonlinear optical effects have been widely explored for microscopy due to the possibility of three-dimension (3D) image acquisition. Harmonic generation and nonlinear absorption, for instance, were used for this purpose. Each nonlinear effect has its own characteristic, complexity, type of contrast, advantage and disadvantage, etc. Recently, we developed a new simple and sensitive method for measuring nonlinear ellipse rotation (NER) using a dual-phase lock-in amplifier, which could be successfully applied for measuring local nonlinearity distribution on a sample and, consequently, the image acquisition. The NER is a particular refractive nonlinear effect which appears when strong elliptical polarized laser beam propagates along one nonlinear material. It is type of refractive Kerr nonlinearity similar to self-focalization responsible for the signal in the Z-scan technique. The self-focalization is one of the most important refractive effects, but it cannot be used for image acquisition. On the other hand, NER does. Furthermore, such refractive nonlinearities signal can be very strong and serves as a new contrast for nonlinear microscopy.