1. Multi-channel swept source optical coherence tomography concept based on photonic integrated circuits
- Author
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Nevlacsil, Stefan, Muellner, Paul, Maese-Novo, Alejandro, Eggeling, Moritz, Vogelbacher, Florian, Sagmeister, Martin, Kraft, Jochen, Rank, Elisabet, Drexler, Wolfgang, and Hainberger, Rainer
- Subjects
Physics - Applied Physics ,Physics - Optics - Abstract
In this paper, we present a novel concept for a multi-channel swept source optical coherence tomography (OCT) system based on photonic integrated circuits (PICs). At the core of this concept is a low-loss polarization dependent path routing approach allowing for lower excess loss compared to previously shown PIC-based OCT systems, facilitating a parallelization of measurement units. As a proof of concept for the low-loss path routing, a silicon nitride PIC-based single-channel swept source OCT system operating at 840 nm was implemented and used to acquire in-vivo tomograms of a human retina. The fabrication of the PIC was done via CMOS-compatible plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition to allow future monolithic co-integration with photodiodes and read-out electronics. A performance analysis using the results of the implemented photonic building blocks shows a potential tenfold increase of the acquisition speed for a multi-channel system compared to an ideal lossless single-channel system with the same signal-to-noise ratio., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables
- Published
- 2020
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