PMID- 28446793
OWN - NLM
STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE
DCOM- 20180330
LR  - 20181113
IS  - 2045-2322 (Electronic)
IS  - 2045-2322 (Linking)
VI  - 7
IP  - 1
DP  - 2017 Apr 26
TI  - Demonstration of Shot-noise-limited Swept Source OCT Without Balanced Detection.
PG  - 1183
LID - 10.1038/s41598-017-01339-6 [doi]
LID - 1183
AB  - Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been utilized in a rapidly growing number 
      of clinical and scientific applications. In particular, swept source OCT (SS-OCT) 
      has attracted many attentions due to its excellent performance. So far however, 
      the limitations of existing photon detectors have prevented achieving 
      shot-noise-limited sensitivity without using balanced-detection scheme in SS-OCT, 
      even when superconducting single-photon detectors were used. Unfortunately, 
      balanced-detection increases OCT system size and cost, as it requires many 
      additional components to boost the laser power and maintain near ideal balanced 
      performance across the whole optical bandwidth. Here we show for the first time 
      that a photon detector is capable of achieving shot noise limited performance 
      without using the balanced-detection technique in SS-OCT. We built a system using 
      a so-called electron-injection photodetector, with a cutoff-wavelength of 
      1700 nm. Our system achieves a shot-noise-limited sensitivity of about -105 dB at 
      a reference laser power of ~350 nW, which is more than 30 times lower laser power 
      compared with the best-reported results. The high sensitivity of the 
      electron-injection detector allows utilization of micron-scale tunable laser 
      sources (e.g. VCSEL) and eliminates the need for fiber amplifiers and highly 
      precise couplers, which are an essential part of the conventional SS-OCT systems.
FAU - Fathipour, Vala
AU  - Fathipour V
AD  - Bio-Inspired Sensors and Optoelectronics Laboratory, Northwestern University, 
      2145 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
FAU - Schmoll, Tilman
AU  - Schmoll T
AD  - ZEISS, Medical Technology Business Group, Advanced Development, 5160 Hacienda 
      Drive, Dublin, CA, 94568, USA.
FAU - Bonakdar, Alireza
AU  - Bonakdar A
AD  - Bio-Inspired Sensors and Optoelectronics Laboratory, Northwestern University, 
      2145 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
FAU - Wheaton, Skylar
AU  - Wheaton S
AD  - Bio-Inspired Sensors and Optoelectronics Laboratory, Northwestern University, 
      2145 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
FAU - Mohseni, Hooman
AU  - Mohseni H
AD  - Bio-Inspired Sensors and Optoelectronics Laboratory, Northwestern University, 
      2145 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA. hmohseni@northwestern.edu.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PT  - Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
DEP - 20170426
PL  - England
TA  - Sci Rep
JT  - Scientific reports
JID - 101563288
PMC - PMC5430670
COIS- The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
EDAT- 2017/04/28 06:00
MHDA- 2017/04/28 06:01
PMCR- 2017/04/26
CRDT- 2017/04/28 06:00
PHST- 2016/11/21 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2017/03/28 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2017/04/28 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2017/04/28 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2017/04/28 06:01 [medline]
PHST- 2017/04/26 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - 10.1038/s41598-017-01339-6 [pii]
AID - 1339 [pii]
AID - 10.1038/s41598-017-01339-6 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 26;7(1):1183. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-01339-6.