Megahertz FDML Laser with up to 143nm Sweep Range for Ultrahigh Resolution OCT at 1050nm

Kolb, Jan Philip; Klein, Thomas; Eibl, Mattias; Pfeiffer, Tom; Wieser, Wolfgang; Huber, Robert (2016): Megahertz FDML Laser with up to 143nm Sweep Range for Ultrahigh Resolution OCT at 1050nm. Optical Coherence Tomography and Coherence Domain Optical Methods in Biomedicine XX, 15-17 February 2016, San Francisco, California, United States.

Abstract

We present a new design of a Fourier Domain Mode Locked laser (FDML laser), which provides a new record in sweep range at similar to 1 mu m center wavelength: At the fundamental sweep rate of 2x417 kHz we reach 143nm bandwidth and 120nm with 4x buffering at 1.67MHz sweep rate. The latter configuration of our system is characterized: The FWHM of the point spread function (PSF) of a mirror is 5.6 mu m (in tissue). Human in vivo retinal imaging is performed with the MHz laser showing more details in vascular structures. Here we could measure an axial resolution of 6.0 mu m by determining the FWHM of specular reflex in the image. Additionally, challenges related to such a high sweep bandwidth such as water absorption are investigated.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Report)
• Published in: Izatt, Joseph A. (ed.) . Optical Coherence Tomography and Coherence Domain Optical Methods in Biomedicine XX : 15-17 February 2016, San Francisco, California, United States. Bellingham, Washington: SPIE Digital Library,
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 0277-786X
• Place of Publication: Bellingham, Washington
• Annotation: Proceedings of SPIE ; 9697
• Language: English