OCTOBER 15, 2008 -- A consortium led by ultrafast fiber laser manufacturer Fianium(Eugene, OR and Southampton, UK) is working to develop and evaluate advanced, optical-fiber white-light (supercontinuum) lasers to enhance biomedical imaging. The "WhiteLase" project, co-funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board, brings together Fianium with the Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials (CPPM) at the University of Bath (Bath, UK) and Edinburgh Instruments Ltd. (Livingston, Scotland).
The project aims to deliver UV-content supercontinuum sources and ultra-bright visible supercontinuum sources and evaluate the technology within fluorescence imaging applications. The new lasers will offer UV content down to below 300nm and provide spectral power densities an order of magnitude higher than those of existing, commercial supercontinuum sources.
"Fianium's past collaboration with the CPPM at the University of Bath has been extremely successful and will be a great benefit in developing revolutionary new white light fiber lasers for biomedical imaging applications," said John Clowes, Director of Business Development at Fianium and coordinator of the WhiteLase project.
William Wadsworth, who leads the CPPM team, added, "The CPPM has a long and distinguished history in supercontinuum generation and the challenging objectives of the WhiteLase project will undoubtedly lead us to exciting new developments in photonic crystal fibers."
As end-user partners within the project, Edinburgh Instruments is gaining first access to the newly- developed supercontinuum fiber lasers and evaluating these sources in a host of fluorescence imaging applications.
More information:
Fianium
The Technology Strategy Board
Edinburgh Instruments