Mid-infrared multispectral tissue imaging using a chalcogenide fiber supercontinuum source

Abstract

We present, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration of mid-infrared supercontinuum (SC) tissue imaging at wavelengths beyond 5 μm using a fiber-coupled SC source spanning 2-7.5 μm. The SC was generated in a tapered large-mode-area chalcogenide photonic crystal fiber in order to obtain broad bandwidth, high average power, and single-mode output for diffraction-limited imaging performance. Tissue imaging was demonstrated in transmission at selected wavelengths between 5.7 (1754 cm) and 7.3 μm (1370 cm) by point scanning over a sub-millimeter region of colon tissue, and the results were compared to images obtained from a commercial instrument.

Amplitude noise and coherence degradation of femtosecond supercontinuum generation in all-normal-dispersion fibers

“…Despite these obstacles, fs-pumped ANDi SC generation has received significant attention because of its ability to generate temporally coherent SC pulses; a feature that is unachievable in the anomalous dispersion regime. This gives such systems potential in a range of fields including optical coherence tomography (OCT), optical metrology, photo-acoustic imaging, and spectroscopy [6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

Nanoimprinting and tapering of chalcogenide photonic crystal fibers for cascaded supercontinuum generation

“…SC light sources based on chalcogenide glass optical fibers are among the main candidates for enabling new and improved midinfrared photonic applications within broadband imaging and spectroscopy [1][2][3]. Currently, the most promising method for generating SC reaching far into the mid-infrared fingerprint region is through so-called cascaded generation using a series of concatenated silica, fluoride, and chalcogenide fibers that gradually extend the spectrum from the near-infrared to the mid-infrared [4][5][6][7].…”

Chalcogenide-glass polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber for mid-infrared supercontinuum generation

“…Supercontinuum (SC) generation towards the mid-infrared (MIR) range is a very active field of research motivated by a wide range of applications including optical coherence tomography (OCT), material processing, optical sensing and absorption spectroscopy [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Although much progress in this field has been reported recently, state-of-the-art mid-IR SC systems are still in their infancy and considerable effort is required before mature broadband IR SC light sources beyond 5 μm are made available for industrial applications.…”