Pulse front adaptive optics in multiphoton microscopy

The accurate focusing of ultrashort laser pulses is extremely important in multiphoton microscopy. Using adaptive optics to manipulate the incident ultrafast beam in either the spectral or spatial domain can introduce significant benefits when imaging. Here we introduce pulse front adaptive optics: manipulating an ultrashort pulse in both the spatial and temporal domains. A deformable mirror and a spatial light modulator are operated in concert to modify contours of constant intensity in space and time within an ultrashort pulse. Through adaptive control of the pulse front, we demonstrate an enhancement in the measured fluorescence from a two photon microscope.