title: Achromatic miniature lens system for coherent Raman scattering microscopy.
abstract: We discuss the design and performance of a miniature objective lens optimized for coherent Raman scattering microscopy. The packaged lens assembly has a numerical aperture of 0.51 in water and an outer diameter of 8 mm. The lens system exhibits minimum chromatic aberrations, and produces coherent Raman scattering images with sub-micrometer lateral resolution (0.648 μm) using near-infrared excitation pulses. We demonstrate that despite the small dimensions of the miniature objective, the performance of this lens system is comparable to standard microscope objective lenses, offering opportunities for miniaturizing coherent Raman scattering imaging probes without sacrificing the image quality.
authors.affiliation: Beckman Laser Institute, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
authors.forename: Richa
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mittal
authors.forename: Mihaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Balu
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wilder-Smith
authors.forename: Eric O
authors.initials: EO
authors.lastname: Potma
keywords: (180.4315) Nonlinear microscopy; (220.3630) Lenses; (350.3950) Micro-optics