Quantum measurements using single-photon detectors are opening interesting new perspectives in diverse fields such as remote sensing, quantum cryptography and quantum computing. A particularly ...demanding class of applications relies on the simultaneous detection of correlated single photons. In the visible and near infrared wavelength ranges suitable single-photon detectors do exist. However, low detector quantum efficiency or excessive noise has hampered their mid-infrared (MIR) counterpart. Fast and highly efficient single-photon detectors are thus highly sought after for MIR applications. Here we pave the way to quantum measurements in the MIR by the demonstration of a room temperature coincidence measurement with non-degenerate twin photons at about 3.1 μm. The experiment is based on the spectral translation of MIR radiation into the visible region, by means of efficient up-converter modules. The up-converted pairs are then detected with low-noise silicon avalanche photodiodes without the need for cryogenic cooling.
Mid-infrared (MIR) imaging has emerged as a valuable tool to investigate biological samples, such as tissue histological sections and cell cultures, by providing non-destructive chemical specificity ...without recourse to labels. While feasibility studies have shown the capabilities of MIR imaging approaches to address key biological and clinical questions, these techniques are still far from being deployable by non-expert users. In this review, we discuss the current state of the art of MIR technologies and give an overview on technical innovations and developments with the potential to make MIR imaging systems more readily available to a larger community. The most promising developments over the last few years are discussed here. They include improvements in MIR light sources with the availability of quantum cascade lasers and supercontinuum IR sources as well as the recently developed upconversion scheme to improve the detection of MIR radiation. These technical advances can substantially speed up data acquisition of multispectral or hyperspectral datasets thus providing the end user with vast amounts of data when imaging whole tissue areas of many mm2. Therefore, effective data analysis is of tremendous importance, and progress in method development is discussed with respect to the specific biomedical context.
We present highly efficient sum-frequency generation between two CW IR lasers using periodically poled KTP. The system is based on the 1064 and 1342 nm laser-lines of two Nd:YVO4 lasers. This is an ...all solid-state light source in the yellow-orange spectral range. The system is optimized in terms of efficiency as well as stability. We compare the performance of a singly and a doubly resonant system, and find that the stability of the singly resonant system is superior to that of the doubly resonant system. We find that the overall conversion efficiency of the single resonant system is higher than for the doubly resonant configuration.
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