| 概 要 |
In recent years, optical techniques using femtosecond lasers have been powerful tools in life science research. For instance, the ultrashort femtosecond laser pulses enable capturing molecular dynamics that proceed in very short timescales; from femtosecond to picosecond. Moreover, the non-linear property of femtosecond lasers makes multiphoton processes possible; e.g. applied for stimulated Raman scattering and multi-photon imaging.
As an example of molecular dynamics observation, I will show the primary photoreaction process of channelrhodopsin, a light-gated ion channel. Channelrhodopsin is the most widely used optogenetic tool enabling optical control of neural activities with high spatiotemporal precision. The primary reaction of channelrhodopsin proceeds in femto- to picoseconds and is fundamental to decide its activation efficiency. To study such fast photoreactions, we have applied femtosecond spectroscopy named pump-probe spectroscopy. Furthermore, I will briefly introduce three-photon deep-tissue imaging techniques for the mouse brain using near-infrared femtosecond lasers.
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