OPTICAL HARMONIC-GENERATION FROM ANIMAL-TISSUES BY THE USE OF PICOSECOND AND FEMTOSECOND LASER-PULSES

Second- and third-harmonic generations of femtosecond and picosecond l aser pulses have been measured from chicken skin, muscle, and fat tiss ues. The magnitude of the harmonic signals showed a strong structural dependence with the signal from skin interface being the strongest. Th e polarization dependence of the signal was also measured and found to be consistent with the fact that the tissue samples were highly scatt ering random media. The second-harmonic- and third-harmonic-generation conversion efficiencies were found to be in the range of similar to 1 0(-7) to similar to 10(-10). (C) 1996 Optical Society of America