Lehrstuhl für BioMolekulare Optik, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 Munich, Germany.
J Biophotonics. 2011 Aug;4(7-8):552-8. doi: 10.1002/jbio.201000104. Epub 2010 Nov 12.
The wavelength swept amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source presented in this paper is an alternative approach to realize a light source for high speed swept source optical coherence tomography (OCT). ASE alternately passes a cascade of different optical gain elements and tunable optical bandpass filters. In this work we show for the first time a wavelength swept ASE source in the 1060 nm wavelength range, enabling high speed retinal OCT imaging. We demonstrate ultra-rapid retinal OCT at a line rate of 170 kHz, a record sweep rate at 1060 nm of 340 kHz with 70 nm full sweep width, enabling an axial resolution of 11 μm. Two different implementations of the source are characterized and compared to each other. The last gain element is either a semiconductor optical amplifier or an Ytterbium-doped fibre amplifier enabling high average output power of >40 mW. Various biophotonic imaging examples provide a wide range of quality benchmarks achievable with such sources.
本文提出的波长扫频放大自发辐射（ASE）源是实现高速扫频光相干断层扫描（OCT）光源的一种替代方法。ASE 交替通过级联的不同光增益元件和可调谐光带通滤波器。在这项工作中，我们首次在 1060nm 波长范围内展示了波长扫频 ASE 源，实现了高速视网膜 OCT 成像。我们演示了超快视网膜 OCT，线速率为 170kHz，1060nm 的扫描速率为 340kHz，全扫宽为 70nm，轴向分辨率为 11μm。对两种不同的光源实现方式进行了表征，并相互进行了比较。最后一个增益元件是半导体光放大器或掺镱光纤放大器，可实现>40mW 的高平均输出功率。各种生物光子学成像示例提供了此类光源可实现的广泛质量基准。
