Ultra-Broadband Sources for Optical Coherence Tomography

描述(由申请人提供)： 光学相干层析成像(OCT)在研究和临床医学中的未来在很大程度上取决于更好的光源的发展。为了实现在高散射组织中检测和分期内皮癌的亚细胞成像这一长期目标，需要具有更宽带宽和更高单模功率的便携式光源。此外，对组织成分的评估需要更大的中心波长的灵活性。 这项工作旨在利用半导体晶片键合技术为OCT制造高功率、宽带、光谱形状的单芯片超辐射二极管(SLD)光源。这项技术能够在线集成几个SLD源，这些源包括不同的组成发射极区域，并且工作在不同的光谱波段。所提出的几何结构潜在地允许4-8个谱带的任意加权叠加，并有望克服现有谱合成技术中的固有损失。这些光源的目标规格是大于200纳米(Nm)的带宽和大于10毫瓦(MW)的光纤耦合功率，来自单个芯片。如果成功制造，这种紧凑型设备将在组织成像应用中为研究人员和新兴的OCT制造商提供前所未有的深度分辨率，支持光谱OCT，理想地增加高分辨率OCT研究的扩散。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The future of optical coherence tomography (OCT) in research and clinical medicine depends, to a large extent, on the development of better light sources. Portable sources with much wider bandwidths and higher single mode power are required to achieve the long standing goal of subcellular imaging in highly scattering tissue for detection and staging of endothelial cancers. Additionally, greater flexibility of center wavelength is required for assessment of tissue composition. This work aims to employ semiconductor wafer bonding technology to create high power, broadband, spectrally shaped, single-chip superluminescent diode (SLD) sources for OCT. This technology enables the in-line integration of several SLD sources comprising different composition emitter regions and operating at different spectral bands. The proposed geometry potentially allows superposition of 4-8 spectral bands with arbitrary weighting of each band, and promises to overcome the inherent losses in existing spectral synthesis techniques. The target specifications for these sources are greater than 200 nanometer (nm) bandwidth and greater than10 milliwatt (mw) fiber coupled power, out of a single chip. If successfully fabricated, this compact device will present researchers and emerging OCT manufacturers with unprecedented depth resolution in tissue imaging applications, enable spectroscopic OCT, and ideally increase the proliferation of high-resolution OCT research.