Summary
In their simplest form, supercontinuum sources, or "white lasers", consist of a powerful laser injected into an optical fiber. Now that the joint development of lasers and microstructured fibers has reached a sufficiently high degree of maturity, supercontinuum sources are now commercially available. They are mainly used in fluorescence imaging, flow cytometry and general metrology.
Abstract
Supercontinuum sources, also known as "white lasers", are made of a powerful laser launched into an optical fiber, in their simplest form. The simultaneous development of lasers sources and microstructured fibers has reached a sufficiently high degree of maturity so that supercontinuum sources are now commercially available. They are mainly used in fluorescence imaging, flow cytometry or characterization of optical components.
Keywords
Fiber optics, laser sources, nonlinear effects, fluorescence microscopy
Keywords
Optical fibers, laser sources, nonlinear effects, fluorescence microscopy
Key points
Sector: Optics
Degree of technology diffusion: Emergence | Growth | Maturity
Technologies involved: laser sources, optical fibers
Applications: metrology, microscopy, imaging
Main French players :
Competitive clusters :
Competence centers: University of Franche-Comté (Femto-ST Institute), University of Lille 1 (PhLAM), University of Limoges (XLIM), University of Burgundy (ICB)
Manufacturers : Leukos (France), Fianium (UK), NKT Photonics (Denmark)
Other international players: University of Bath (UK), Imperial College London (UK), Technical University of Denmark (Denmark), University of Technology of Tempere (Finland), University of Auckland (New Zealand)