The construction of a titanium:sapphire self-starting laser and two-photon laser-scanning microscope with applications in optical memory

This thesis is divided into three parts. The first part of this thesis offers a chemist's perspective on the construction of a Ti:Sapphire laser. With this perspective, construction fundamentals are explained through the concepts of basic inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, and quantum chemistry. Hopefully, this manual will allow the chemist to find solutions to reassembling, improving, or fixing the laser quickly. Consequently, more time can be spent pursuing experiments and less time can be spent troubleshooting instrumentation.; The second part of this thesis describes the construction, calibration, and applications of a two-photon laser-scanning microscope. This laser-scanning two-photon fluorescence microscope was capable of resolving single molecules with excellent temporal resolution and three-dimensional spatial resolution. Additional applications for the instrument include: (1) monitoring the development of spatially-resolved shells in solid-support polymers; (2) abricating conductive metallic microstructures by means of liquid phase photodeposition (LPPD); and (3) photochemically activating molecular glass materials to create a fluorescent product.; The third part of this thesis describes this photoactivation process as optical memory in molecular glasses. Since molecular glasses have a high viscosity (1013 Poise), molecules show very little movement over time. Using a 40X 1.4 NA objective, we concentrated a small excitation energy into a diffraction limited focal volume of glass and imaged the fluorescence from a diffraction limited spot. Due to the high viscosity, these spots remained for several days. We also realized that these spots could be read with an intensity that was not capable of writing unless the sample was exposed to it for an excessive period of time. Analytical chemistry methods revealed that the writing process was potentially a three-photon effect and the reading process was a two-photon induced effect. We also determined that these spots could be created in three dimensions because multi-photon processes occur at the focal volume where photon flux is highest. Consequently, we determined that these compounds could be used as high-density optical memory devices.