Shin Sunghwan, Sharma Utkarsh, Tu Haohua, Jung Woonggyu, Boppart Stephen A
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801 USA.
IEEE Photonics Technol Lett. 2010;22(14):1057-1059. doi: 10.1109/LPT.2010.2050058.
Relative intensity noise (RIN) is one of the most significant factors limiting the sensitivity of an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system. The existing and prevalent theory being used for estimating RIN for various light sources in OCT is questionable, and cannot be applied uniformly for different types of sources. The origin of noise in various sources differs significantly, owing to the different physical nature of photon generation. In this study, we characterize and compare RIN of several OCT light sources including superluminescent diodes (SLDs), an erbium-doped fiber amplifier, multiplexed SLDs, and a continuous-wave laser. We also report a method for reduction of RIN by amplifying the SLD light output by using a gain-saturated semiconductor optical amplifier.
相对强度噪声（RIN）是限制光学相干断层扫描（OCT）系统灵敏度的最重要因素之一。目前用于估计OCT中各种光源RIN的现有且普遍的理论存在问题，并且不能统一应用于不同类型的光源。由于光子产生的物理性质不同，各种光源中的噪声来源差异很大。在本研究中，我们对包括超发光二极管（SLD）、掺铒光纤放大器、多路复用SLD和连续波激光器在内的几种OCT光源的RIN进行了表征和比较。我们还报告了一种通过使用增益饱和半导体光放大器放大SLD光输出以降低RIN的方法。
