We present a molecular-level study of the geometric and electronic properties of Co(II) tetraphenylporphyrin molecules adsorbed on the Cu(111) surface. A combination of low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure observations reveals how the metal substrate induces a conformational adaptation into a distorted saddle-shaped geometry. By scanning tunneling spectroscopy we identified the discrete energy levels of the molecule and mapped their spatial electron-density distributions. These results, along with a simple theoretical description, provide a direct correlation between the shape of frontier molecular orbitals and intramolecular structural features.

We report an all-normal dispersion femtosecond laser based on large-mode-area Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber. Self-starting mode-locked pulses are obtained with an average power of 12 W at 84 MHz repetition rate, corresponding to 140 nJ of chirped pulse energy. These are dechirped to a near transform-limited duration of 115 fs. Experimental results are consistent with numerical simulations of dissipative soliton intracavity pulse evolution, and demonstrate scaling of 100 fs pulses to megawatt peak powers.

We present a fiber-format picosecond light source for coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy. Pulses from a Yb-doped fiber amplifier are frequency converted by four-wave mixing (FWM) in normal-dispersion photonic crystal fiber to produce a synchronized two-color picosecond pulse train. We show that seeding the FWM process overcomes the deleterious effects of group-velocity mismatch and allows efficient conversion into narrow frequency bands. The source generates more than 160 mW of nearly transform-limited pulses tunable from 775 to 815 nm. High-quality coherent Raman images of animal tissues and cells acquired with this source are presented.

We present a synchronously pumped fiber optical parametric oscillator for coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy. Pulses from a 1 μm Yb-doped fiber laser are amplified and frequency converted to 779–808 nm through normal dispersion four-wave mixing in a photonic crystal fiber. The idler frequency is resonant in the oscillator cavity, and we find that bandpass filtering the feedback is essential for a stable, narrow-bandwidth output. Experimental results agree quite well with numerical simulations of the device. Transform-limited 2 ps pulses with energy up to 4 nJ can be generated at the signal wavelength. The average power is 180 mW, and the relative-intensity noise is much lower than that of a similar parametric amplifier. High-quality coherent Raman images of mouse tissues recorded with this source are presented.

The mode-locking of dissipative soliton fiber lasers using large mode area fiber supporting multiple transverse modes is studied experimentally and theoretically. The averaged mode-locking dynamics in a multi-mode fiber are studied using a distributed model. The co-propagation of multiple transverse modes is governed by a system of coupled Ginzburg–Landau equations. Simulations show that stable and robust mode-locked pulses can be produced. However, the mode-locking can be destabilized by excessive higher-order mode content. Experiments using large core step-index fiber, photonic crystal fiber, and chirally-coupled core fiber show that mode-locking can be significantly disturbed in the presence of higher-order modes, resulting in lower maximum single-pulse energies. In practice, spatial mode content must be carefully controlled to achieve full pulse energy scaling. This paper demonstrates that mode-locking performance is very sensitive to the presence of multiple waveguide modes when compared to systems such as amplifiers and continuous-wave lasers.