High-power supercontinuum generation using high-repetition-rate ultrashort-pulse fiber laser for ultrahigh-resolution optical coherence tomography in 1600 nm spectral band

Abstract

We describe the generation of a high-power, spectrally smooth supercontinuum (SC) in the 1600 nm spectral band for ultrahigh-resolution optical coherence tomography (UHR-OCT). A clean SC was achieved by using a highly nonlinear fiber with normal dispersion properties and a high-quality pedestal-free pulse obtained from a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser operating at 182 MHz. The center wavelength and spectral width were 1578 and 172 nm, respectively. The output power of the SC was 51 mW. Using the developed SC source, we demonstrated UHR-OCT imaging of biological samples with a sensitivity of 109 dB and an axial resolution of 4.9 µm in tissue.

Review of tellurite glasses purification issues for mid‐IR optical fiber applications

“…Such tellurite fibers exhibit an infrared supercontinuum extending from 1 µm up to 5 µm. This opens up new possibilities for applications of tellurite fibers such as absorption spectroscopy 89 , frequency comb generation for high resolution spectroscopy [90][91][92] , optical coherence tomography 93,94 , food quality analysis 95 , biomedical endoscopy [96][97][98][99] and atmospheric gas sensing. 81,100 9 List of tables L.mol -1 .cm - 1 37, 36 .…”

Soliton Raman shift wavelength tuning through the pump pulse polarization control

“…Due to a wide range of applications, design of laser sources of extended telecom range is among hot topics of modern laser physics [1][2][3][4][5]. In addition to the well-known problem related to the growing demands in telecom fiber optical data transmission systems of extended bandwidth in recent years the researchers developed an interest to the mode-locked lasers of 1600-1700 nm spectral range for a number of biomedical applications [6][7][8][9][10]. This wavelength area is located in the third optical window, and defines the spectral region where the light has minimum scattering losses and a maximum depth of penetration in tissue, so these sources are in high demand in the development of biomedical multiphoton imaging system [6][7][8][9][10].…”

High-spatial-resolution deep tissue imaging with spectral-domain optical coherence microscopy in the 1700-nm spectral band

“…5 Although the light absorption by water becomes higher in the 1700-nm wavelength region, several groups, including ours, have recently reported that use of the 1700-nm spectral band allows imaging at an imaging depth greater than that in the 1300-nm spectral band, due to the lower light attenuation, which arises from the reduced scattering coefficient and the existence of a local minimum of the water absorption coefficient in the 1700-nm spectral band. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] In recently reported 1700-nm SS-OCT, an imaging depth of 2.6 mm was realized in imaging of living mouse brains. 20 In our group, we have been developing high-axial-resolution 1700-nm OCT by using a supercontinuum (SC) fiber laser source.…”