Evaluation of a femtosecond fiber laser for two-photon fluorescence correlation spectroscopy.

This work evaluates a femtosecond fiber laser for use in two-photon fluorescence fluctuation spectroscopy. Fiber lasers present an attractive alternative to Ti:Sapphire systems because of their compact size and portability. Autocorrelation of the second harmonic generation signal from the laser demonstrates that its stability is sufficient for two-photon fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy autocorrelation traces were well fit by a Gaussian-Lorentzian squared model with a beam waist near the diffraction limit for the 810 nm wavelength. A photon counting histogram collected with this system also fit nicely to a single-species model, further demonstrating the quality of the focal shape. The authors conclude that the output from the femtosecond fiber laser is sufficiently stable and has a high enough quality beam shape for fluctuation fluorescence methods, and thus represents an effective, compact, readily portable two-photon excitation source. (c) 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.