Removing artifacts in Second Harmonic Generation imaging by interferometry

Abstract

We report the use of Interferometric Second Harmonic Generation (I-SHG) microscopy to eliminate imaging artifacts from SHG patterns. Boundaries between two regions of opposite polarities in periodically-poled lithium niobate (PPLN) and in muscle myosin are compared, and shown to produce respectively incoherent contributions to the SHG signal and artefactual interferences. I-SHG allows to remove those artifacts, which opens a great opportunity for a better characterization of SHG images of various materials, especially complex media like biological tissues.