Harmonic holograms: High-speed three-dimensional imaging captures biological dynamics

(Phys.org) --In the world of biomedical science, optical microscopy rules - and nonlinear optical microscopy, which uses ultrashort pulse lasers as the illumination source, allows researchers to glean much greater detail from biological specimens. That being said, the technique's weak signal levels significantly limit 3D image acquisition rates. Recently, however, scientists at Colorado State University employed 3D second harmonic generation achieved frame rates over 8,000 times faster than is p...