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Two-photon excitation imaging is a recently described optical sectioning technique where fluorophore excitation is confined to--and therefore defines--the optical section being observed. This characteristic offers a significant advantage over laser-scanning confocal microscopy; the volume of fluorophore excited in the minimum necessary for imaging, thereby minimizing the destructive effects of fluorophore excitation in living tissues. In addition, a confocal pinhole is not required for optical scattering--thus further reducing the excitation needed for efficient photon collection. We have set up a two-photon excitation imaging system which uses an all-solid-state, short-pulse, long-wavelength laser as an excitation source. The source is a diode-pumped, mode-locked Nd:YLF laser operating in the infrared (1047nm). This laser is small, has modest power requirements, and has proven reliable and stable in operation. The short laser pulses from the laser are affected by the system optical path; this has been investigated with second harmonic generation derived from a nonlinear crystal. The system has been specifically designed for the study of live biological specimens. Two cell types especially sensitive to high-energy illumination, the developing Caenorhabditis elegans embryo and the crawling sperm of the nematode, Ascaris, were used to demonstrate the dramatic increase in viability when fluorescence is generated by two-photon excitation. The system has the capability of switching between two-photon and confocal imaging modes to facilitate direct comparison of theory of these two optical sectioning techniques on the same specimen. A heavily stained zebra fish embryo was used to demonstrate the increase in sectioning depth when fluorescence is generated by infrared two-photon excitation. Two-photon excitation with the 1047nm laser produces bright images with a variety of red emitting fluorophores, and some green emitting fluorophores, commonly used in biological research. Fortuitously, we have found that at least four blue emitting fluorophores normally excited by UV light are excited by the pulsed 1047nm laser, by what we believe to be three-photon excitation. Multi-photon excitation is demonstrated by a double labelled C. elegans embryo.
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