Imaging Deep Optical Sections with Two-Photon Excitation Fluorescence Microscopy

Abstract

The technique of optical sectioning allows the visualization of a succession of images of parallel planes within a thick specimen with little or no out-of-focus interference. Ultimately, a limit is reached on the depth to which optical sections can be obtained from a given sample. This limit, up to the working distance of the objective, is largely determined by the degree of light scattering encountered by the incident excitation beam as well as the returning emission signal.Confocal imaging was one of the first optical sectioning techniques applied to fluorescence imaging. Two-photon excitation imaging is a recently developed alternative optical sectioning technique for fluorescence imaging where an excitation wavelength of around twice the excitation peak of the fluorophore is used in a laser-scanning microscope. This excitation wavelength produces very little fluorophore excitation in the bulk of the sample, but when the incident photons are confined in space and time sufficient two-photon absorption events can take place to obtain rapid imaging of fluorophores. With high peak powers—obtained with a sub-picosecond pulsed laser source focused by a lens—sufficient photon density can be obtained for easily detectable two-photon events. Thus fluorophore excitation occurs as two photons are absorbed essentially simultaneously, which act effectively as a single photon of twice the energy (half the wavelength). Two-photon events have a quadratic dependence on intensity, and, therefore, decrease rapidly away from the focal volume of the lens. In a raster scanning system, fluorophore excitation is confined to the optical section being viewed as fluorophore away from the lens focal volume is not excited by the long-wavelength illumination.