High-speed Optical Frequency Domain Imaging Research Articles

High speed miniature motorized endoscopic probe for optical frequency domain imaging

We present a miniature motorized endoscopic probe for Optical Coherence Tomography with an outer diameter of 1.65 mm and a rotation speed of 3,000-12,500 rpm. This is the smallest motorized high speed OCT probe to our knowledge. The probe has a motorized distal end which provides a significant advantage over proximally driven probes since it does not require a drive shaft to transfer the rotational torque to the distal end of the probe and functions without a fiber rotary junction. The probe has a focal Full Width at Half Maximum of 9.6 µm and a working distance of 0.47 mm. We analyzed the non uniform rotation distortion and found a location fluctuation of only 1.87° in repeated measurements of the same object. The probe was integrated in a high-speed Optical Frequency Domain Imaging setup at 1310 nm to acquire images from ex vivo pig lung tissue through the working channel of a human bronchoscope.

>400 kHz repetition rate wavelength-swept laser and application to high-speed optical frequency domain imaging

We demonstrate a high-speed wavelength-swept laser with a tuning range of 104 nm (1228-1332 nm) and a repetition rate of 403 kHz. The design of the laser utilizes a high-finesse polygon-based wavelength-scanning filter and a short-length unidirectional ring resonator. Optical frequency domain imaging of the human skin in vivo is presented using this laser, and the system shows sensitivity of higher than 98 dB with single-side ranging depth of 1.7 mm over 4 dB sensitivity roll-off.

Performance of reduced bit-depth acquisition for optical frequency domain imaging

High-speed optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI) has enabled practical wide-field microscopic imaging in the biological laboratory and clinical medicine. The imaging speed of OFDI, and therefore the field of view, of current systems is limited by the rate at which data can be digitized and archived rather than the system sensitivity or laser performance. One solution to this bottleneck is to natively digitize OFDI signals at reduced bit depths, e.g., at 8-bit depth rather than the conventional 12-14 bit depth, thereby reducing overall bandwidth. However, the implications of reduced bit-depth acquisition on image quality have not been studied. In this paper, we use simulations and empirical studies to evaluate the effects of reduced depth acquisition on OFDI image quality. We show that image acquisition at 8-bit depth allows high system sensitivity with only a minimal drop in the signal-to-noise ratio compared to higher bit-depth systems. Images of a human coronary artery acquired in vivo at 8-bit depth are presented and compared with images at higher bit-depth acquisition.

Real-Time FPGA Processing for High-Speed Optical Frequency Domain Imaging

We present a novel algorithm for reconstructing interferograms acquired in optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI). The algorithm was developed specifically for processing in field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and featured the use of a finite-impulse-response (FIR) filter implementation of B-spline interpolation for efficiently re-sampling k-space. When implemented in FPGAs, the algorithm allowed for real-time processing of interferograms acquired with a high-speed OFDI system at 54 kHz and a sampling rate of 100 MS/s.

Phase-resolved optical frequency domain imaging

Phase-resolved Doppler optical coherence tomography has been used to image blood flow dynamics in various tissues using both time-domain and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography techniques. In this manuscript, we present phase-resolved Doppler imaging with a high-speed optical frequency domain imaging system. We demonstrate that by correcting for spurious timing-induced phase errors, excellent flow sensitivity can be achieved, limited only by the imaging signal-to-noise ratio. Conventional and Doppler images showing flow in an Intralipid phantom and in human skin are presented. Additionally, we demonstrate the ability of phase-resolved OFDI to measure high flow rates without the deleterious effects of fringe washout.

High-speed optical frequency-domain imaging.

We demonstrate high-speed, high-sensitivity, high-resolution optical imaging based on optical frequency-domain interferometry using a rapidly-tuned wavelength-swept laser. We derive and show experimentally that frequency-domain ranging provides a superior signal-to-noise ratio compared with conventional time-domain ranging as used in optical coherence tomography. A high sensitivity of -110 dB was obtained with a 6 mW source at an axial resolution of 13.5 microm and an A-line rate of 15.7 kHz, representing more than an order-of-magnitude improvement compared with previous OCT and interferometric imaging methods.