Ultra-Broadband Sources for Optical Coherence Tomography

描述（由申请人提供）： 光学相干断层扫描（OCT）在研究和临床医学中的未来在很大程度上取决于更好光源的开发。需要具有更宽的带宽和更高的单模功率的便携式源来实现在高散射组织中进行亚细胞成像以检测和分期内皮癌的长期目标。此外，需要更大的中心波长的灵活性来评估组织成分。 这项工作的目的是采用半导体晶片键合技术，以创建高功率，宽带，光谱形状，单芯片超辐射发光二极管（SLD）的OCT源。这项技术使几个SLD源，包括不同的组合物发射区，并在不同的光谱波段的在线集成。所提出的几何结构潜在地允许叠加4-8个谱带，每个谱带具有任意加权，并且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，出一个单一的芯片。如果成功制造，这种紧凑的设备将为研究人员和新兴的OCT制造商提供组织成像应用中前所未有的深度分辨率，实现光谱OCT，并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.