Abstract
We demonstrate a novel multiwavelength light source around the 1.7-μm region based on continuous-wave (CW) supercontinuum (SC) generation for the deeper imaging of low-water-absorption sample with a spectrally sampled optical coherence tomography (OCT) system. This self-regulated Gaussian spectrum of CW SC source has an extremely smooth flat width with more than 210-nm full-width at half-maximum bandwidth centered at the 1.7-μm region, a high output power of 500 mW, and a low temporal instability with less than 0.1 dB for an hour. In order to improve the OCT signal sensitivity without increasing the optical illumination power, a multiwavelength light source based on this CW SC was implemented by using a tunable fiber Sagnac comb filter. When it was applied to the spectrally sampled OCT imaging, the multiwavelength light source enabled a dynamic range improvement, compared to conventional continuous spectral light source with the same average optical power.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 6018983 |
Pages (from-to) | 1200-1208 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2012 |
Keywords
- Continuous-wave (CW) supercontinuum (SC) source
- Sagnac effect
- fiber optics
- optical coherence tomography (OCT)