Spectrally-sampled OCT for sensitivity improvement from limited optical power

Although high optical illumination power is favored in optical coherence tomography (OCT) for better signal-to-noise ratio, optical power is often limited by a damaged threshold for biomedical living tissues and autocorrelation signals observed in tomograms. In order to improve signal sensitivity wi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inOptics express Vol. 16; no. 22; p. 17457
Main Authors Jung, Eun Joo, Park, Jae-Seok, Jeong, Myung Yung, Kim, Chang-Seok, Eom, Tae Joong, Yu, Bong-Ahn, Gee, Sangyoun, Lee, Jongmin, Kim, Moon Ki
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 27.10.2008
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Summary:Although high optical illumination power is favored in optical coherence tomography (OCT) for better signal-to-noise ratio, optical power is often limited by a damaged threshold for biomedical living tissues and autocorrelation signals observed in tomograms. In order to improve signal sensitivity without increasing the optical illumination power, a spectrally sampled multi-wavelength light source is proposed for the OCT system. A fiber Sagnac comb filter was used to spectrally sample the output of a continuous spectral light source. Point spread function analysis shows that the spectrally sampled OCT has an almost 50% dynamic range improvement in comparison with a conventional continuous spectral light source OCT for the same average optical power of 6 mW.
ISSN:1094-4087
1094-4087
DOI:10.1364/oe.16.017457