Combined Neodymium–Ytterbium-Doped ASE Fiber-Optic Source for Optical Coherence Tomography Applications

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging at the 1060-nm region proved to be a successful alternative in ophthalmology not only for resolving intraretinal layers, but also for enabling sufficient penetration to monitor the subretinal vasculature in the choroid when compared to most commonly used OCT imaging systems at the 800-nm region. To encourage further clinical research at this particular wavelength, we have developed a compact fiber-optic source based on amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) centered at 1060 nm with 70-nm spectral bandwidth at full-width at half-maximum and output power 20 mW. Our approach is based on a combination of slightly shifted ASE emission spectra from a combination of Neodymiumand Ytterbium-doped fibers. Spectral shaping and power optimization have been achieved using in-fiber filtering schemes. We have tested the performance of the source in an OCT system optimized for this wavelength.

Full-Field Thickness Distribution of Human Tympanic Membrane Obtained with Optical Coherence Tomography

“…Optical sections through the eardrum were made using a customised Fourier domain optical coherence tomography system, equipped with a wide-angle galvo-scanning unit. A broadband light source, based on an ytterbiumdoped fiber (Multiwave Photonics, Porto, Portugal) identical to the one described by Trifanov et al (2011) with a central wavelength at λ=1,050 nm and bandwidth Δλ=70 nm was used. The axial resolution of the OCT-setup was determined by measuring the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the autocorrelation signal peak.…”

High-power all-fiberized superfluorescent source with distributed side-coupled cladding-pumped fiber

“…They have been applied in many fields, e.g., rotation sensing [1], spectroscopy, medical imaging via optical coherence tomography [2,3], and pumping of optical fiber Raman amplifiers [4] for their useful characteristics such as compactness, excellent spatial coherence, broadband spectrum, and high output power.…”

Arc-Induced Long-Period Fiber Gratings at INESC TEC. Part I: Fabrication, Characterization and Mechanisms of Formation

“…We also developed our own setup for polishing the electrodes after normal degradation caused by the arc discharges [ 102 ]. It should be highlighted that the final experimental setup shown in Figure 2 d), where the high voltage is instead supplied by the BICC fusion splicer, has been used by dozens of students in their final BSc projects and MSc/PhD thesis as well as by researchers worldwide, resulting in more than two hundred published papers [ 86 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 ]. The only drawback of this infrastructure is the limitation in the minimum grating period to be used, of about 385 μm in standard fibers (240 μm in a nitrogen doped fiber [ 82 ]).…”