Optical coherence detection with stimulated emission: a feasibility study

Abstract

A stimulated emission (SE) based optical coherence tomography (OCT) setup has been established for feasibility study. The setup conducts coherent gating for depth resolution using fluorescence based stimulated emission, an unprecedented scheme. The resulting depth resolution of this interferometric OCT setup is approximately 66 m, determined by the coherence of the stimulation light source. Additionally, the SE signal can be used to obtain fluorescence lifetime.