Wide-field two-photon microscopy: features and advantages for biomedical applications

We describe a simple fluorescence microscope based on wide-field two-photon excitation. While still taking advantage of some inherent properties of non-linear (two-photon) microscopy, such as increased penetration depth through tissue and reduced phototoxicity, this approach provides video frame rate imaging, can be easily coupled to fluorescence spectral and lifetime detection modules, and makes efficient use of the high average power currently available from ultrashort pulsed lasers. For a standard histopathology specimen, we were able to identify different structures based on spectral and fluorescence lifetime detection and analysis. We examined the use of 200fs and 2ps pulses from Spectra Physics MaiTai and Tsunami lasers, respectively, with average power ranging from 50mW to 500mW.

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