Paper
4 March 2019 Swept-source OCT using pulsed mid-infrared light
Wai Ching Lin, Stephen J. Matcher
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
A swept-source optical coherence tomography (OCT) system using mid-infrared light is demonstrated using commercially available light source and photodetectors. The light source is a tunable external cavity quantum cascade laser (QCL) with four laser modules and a wavelength range of 5.4μm – 12.8μm. The laser output is pulsed and has a maximum allowable duty cycle of 8%. A thermoelectrically cooled photovoltaic detector with a peak sensitivity at 8μm is configured in a Michelson interferometer setup. Noise from three sources are characterized: the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC), the detectors and the relative intensity noise (RIN). The ADC and the detector have a noise spectral density of 2.8 pW/√Hz and 21.4 pW/√Hz over a bandwidth of 100 MHz respectively; the value of RIN is -102 dB/Hz. The OCT system is used to collect the reflectivity profile of a mirror, which is measured with a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 17.5 dB. Decreasing the time of sweep from 1s to 200ms has the effect of reducing the SNR by 4 dB.
© (2019) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Wai Ching Lin and Stephen J. Matcher "Swept-source OCT using pulsed mid-infrared light", Proc. SPIE 10890, Label-free Biomedical Imaging and Sensing (LBIS) 2019, 108902D (4 March 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2507933
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KEYWORDS
Optical coherence tomography

Signal to noise ratio

Sensors

Quantum cascade lasers

Mid-IR

Fourier transforms

Pulsed laser operation

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