Cubic meter volume optical coherence tomography
Zhao Wang, Ben Potsaid, Long Chen, Chris Doerr, Hsiang-Chieh Lee, Torben Nielson, Vijaysekhar Jayaraman, Alex E. Cable, Eric Swanson and James G. Fujimoto Optica, Vol. 3, Issue 12, pp. 1496-1503 (open-access, click to download)
Dr. Zhao Wang at the group of Jim Fujimoto at MIT acquired the first OCT volumetric images of 1-meter cubed volumes with 15 micrometer axial resolution. The Praevium MEMS-VCSEL with coherence lengths of hundreds of meters, and an Acacia Networks high-speed silicon-photonics receiver chip enabled the acquisition of these large volumes at high resolution.
Abstract:
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a powerful three-dimensional (3D) imaging modality with micrometer-scale axial resolution and up to multi-GigaVoxel/s imaging speed. However, the imaging range of high-speed OCT has been limited. Here, we report 3D OCT over cubic meter volumes using a long coherence length, 1310 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser and silicon photonic integrated circuit dual-quadrature receiver technology combined with enhanced signal processing. We achieved 15 μm depth resolution for tomographic imaging at a 100 kHz axial scan rate over a 1.5 m range. We show 3D macroscopic imaging examples of a human mannequin, bicycle, machine shop gauge blocks, and a human skull/brain model. High-bandwidth, meter-range OCT demonstrates new capabilities that promise to enable a wide range of biomedical, scientific, industrial, and research applications.
