Optical coherence tomography is a powerful imaging technique to visualize and localize depth-dependent tissue structure to differentiate between healthy and pathological conditions. However, conventional OCT systems are only capable of detecting small areas. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a large area robotically assisted OCT (LARA-OCT) system for automatic acquisition of large OCT images. Using mosaic pattern acquisition and subsequent stitching, we previously demonstrated initial in vivo OCT skin images beyond 10 cm². To improve acquisition speed and reduce dead times, we here demonstrate and analyze LARA-OCT with a new drive-by continuous motion imaging protocol.
A wavelength agile 900 nm 2.5 kW peak power fiber laser is created by four-wave mixing (FWM) in a photonic crystal fiber (PCF), while amplifying a 1300 nm Fourier-domain mode-locked (FDML) laser. The FWM process is pumped by a home-built 1064 nm master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) laser and seeded by a home-built 1300 nm FDML laser, generating high power pulses at wavelengths, where amplification by active fiber media is difficult. The 900 nm pulses have a spectral linewidth of 70 pm, are tunable over 54 nm and have electronic pulse-to-pulse tuning capability. These pulses can be used for nonlinear imaging like two-photon or coherent anti-Stokes Raman microscopy (CARS) microscopy including spectro-temporal laser imaging by diffracted excitation (SLIDE) and time-encoded (Tico) stimulated Raman microscopy.
We demonstrate a Fourier domain mode locked (FDML) laser centered at 1190 nm with 2×410 kHz sweep repetition rate, a sweeping range of 100 nm and 2.5 mW output power. The laser is based on a quantum dot-semiconductor optical amplifier with small linewidth enhancement factor. The laser could be used as a probe laser in stimulated Raman scattering microscopy and it may be attractive for optical coherence tomography due to low water absorption and the spectral signature of lipids around 1200nm. Moreover, it is ideal to close the gap between FDML lasers at 1064 nm and 1300 nm. Combining these three lasers can enable ultrawideband sweeping to improve the axial OCT resolution down to 2 μm.
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a powerful imaging technique to non-invasively differentiate between healthy skin and pathological conditions. Unfortunately, commercially available OCT-systems are typically slow and not capable of scanning large areas at reasonable speed. Since skin lesions may extend over several square centimeters, potential inflammatory infiltrates remain undetected. Here, we present large area robotically assisted OCT (LARA-OCT) for skin imaging. Therefor a collaborative robot is combined with an existing, home-built 3.3 MHz-OCT-system and for surface tracking an online probe-to-surface control is implemented which is solely based on the OCT surface signal. It features a combined surface-distance and surface-orientation closed-loop control algorithm, which enables automatic positioning and alignment of the probe across the target while imaging. This allows to acquire coherent OCT images of skin areas beyond 10 cm2.
We demonstrate a Fourier domain mode locked (FDML) laser centered around 850 nm with a sweeping range of 50 nm, a fundamental repetition rate of 2×416 kHz and an output power of 2 mW. A new cavity design using three chirped Fiber Bragg gratings is required to overcome sweeping limitations caused by high dispersion. Other solutions to address challenges such as high loss and high polarization mode dispersion will be discussed along with performance. A main application of this laser will be retinal imaging, but it might also be applicable for TiCo-Raman and SLIDE microscopy.
We demonstrate ultra-large field of view OCT scanning using standard optics, a X-Y-galvanometer scanner and a synchronously driven motorized XYZ-positioning stage. The integration of a movable stage into our self-built 3.3 MHz- OCT system allows acquiring coherent ultra-large area images, fully leveraging the high speed potential of our system. For fast OCT-angiography, one galvanometer axis scanner is driven in a repetitive sawtooth pattern, fully synchronized to the movement of the linear stage, to obtain multiple measurements at each position. This technique requires exact synchronization, precise repositioning, and uniform movements with low tolerances to ensure a minimum revisitation error. We analyze error and performance of our setup and demonstrate angiographic imaging.
The chromatic dispersion in optical fibers is a key property for applications where a broadband light source is used and the timing of each individual wavelength is crucial. Counteracting the timing offset introduced by the fiber is a challenge in many applications especially in mode locked lasers. The dispersion parameters need to be measured with high precision. The length of the fiber, the temperature, and the used wavelength will highly impact the amount of dispersion and the accuracy of the measurement. We developed an ultra-high-accuracy dispersion measurement setup at 1080 ± 50 nm considering all the parameters that may influence the measurement. It is based on a home-built wavelength tunable laser where the output is modulated by an electro-optical modulator connected to a 24 GSamples/s arbitrary waveform generator to a complex pattern consisting of pulses and a 4 GHz sine wave. After passing through the fiber the signal is measured with an 80 GSamples/s real time oscilloscope. The fiber’s temperature is controlled to allow for reproducible measurements over several days and we achieve timing measurement accuracies down to ~200 fs. We also present the performance of the setup at ~850 nm. We will discuss and quantify all effects which can negatively impact the system accuracy and we will report on more cost-effective options using lower performance equipment.
We demonstrate that the coherence roll-off and dynamic range of OCT systems using Fourier-domain mode-locked (FDML) lasers can be significantly improved by a high-finesse fiber Fabry-Perot tunable filter (FFP-TF). The newly developed high-finesse FFP-TFs have a finesse of more than 3000, a more than fivefold improvement over previous designs. We show that this results in reduced instantaneous laser linewidth and reduced noise for a 1310 nm FDML laser with 1.6 MHz sweep rate. Since in practice, OCT image range is limited by data acquisition bandwidth, we demonstrate OCT imaging over many centimeters by reducing the sweep range of the laser. In contrast to previous work, standard resampling using a pre-acquired signal (as in SD-OCT) with no k-clocking is sufficient for both small and large sweep range, significantly reducing the system complexity. Live 3D-OCT video rate imaging at 20 cm imaging range is demonstrated.
In Fourier domain mode locked (FDML) lasers, extremely precise and stable matching of the filter tuning period and light circulation time in the cavity is essential for ultra-low noise operation. During the operation of FDML lasers, the ultra-low noise mode can be lost due to temperature drifts of the already temperature stabilized cavity resulting in increased intensity noise. Until now, the filter frequency is continuously regulated to match the changing light circulation time. However, this causes the filter frequency to constantly change by a few mHz and leads to synchronization issues in cases where a fixed filter frequency is desired. We present an actively cavity length controlled FDML laser and a robust and high precision feedback loop algorithm for maintaining ultra-low noise operation. Instead of adapting the filter frequency, the cavity length is adjusted by a motorized free space beam path to match the fixed filter frequency. The closed-loop system achieves a stability of ~0.18 mHz at a sweep repetition rate of ~418 kHz which corresponds to a ratio of 4×10-10. We investigate the coherence properties during the active cavity length adjustments and observe no noise increase compared to fixed cavity length. The cavity length control is fully functional and for the first time, offers the possibility to operate an FDML laser in sweet spot mode at a fixed frequency or phase locked to an external clock. This opens new possibilities for system integration of FDML lasers.
Fourier domain mode locking (FDML) is a recently developed technique for lasers to generate ultra-rapid wavelength sweeps, equivalent to a train of extremely chirped pulses. FDML lasers are the light sources of choice for fastest megahertz optical coherence tomography (MHz-OCT). Measuring the coherence properties of FDML lasers is of particular importance for the image quality in OCT but it is also crucial to develop a better understanding of this unconventional mode locking mechanism. Usually, experiments to analyze the phase stability of FDML lasers use interferometers to generate interference of a single laser by delaying a part of the output to generate a beat signal. Here, for the first time, we present real time beat signal measurements between two independent FDML lasers over the entire sweep range of ~5 THz width for more than 80 roundtrips (~200 μs), evaluate their phase stability and explain the consequence for our understanding of the FDML mechanism. Beat signal measurements allow direct access to the phase difference between the FDML lasers and therefore the difference in timing of the circulating sweeps as well as their instantaneous frequency.
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