Nanosecond SRS fiber amplifier for label-free near-infrared photoacoustic microscopy of lipids

Near-infrared photoacoustics receives increasing interest as an intravital modality to sense key biomolecules. One of the most central types of biomolecules of interest are lipids as they constitute essential bio-hallmarks of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and their in-vivo detection holds insightful information about disease progression and treatment monitoring. However, the full potential of near-infrared photoacoustic for high-resolution and high-sensitivity biomedical studies of lipids has so far not been exploited due a lack of appropriate excitation sources delivering short-pulses at high-repetition-rate, high-pulse-energy, and wavelength around 1200 nm. Here, we demonstrate a custom-built SRS fiber amplifier that provides optical excitations at 1192.8 nm, repetition rates of 200 kHz, pulse durations below 2 ns, and pulse energies beyond 5 μJ. We capitalize on the performance of our excitation source and show near-infrared photoacoustics resolving intrinsic lipid contrast in biomedically relevant specimens ranging from single cells to lipid-rich tissue with subcellular resolution.