Spatial Resolution Enhancement with Fiber-based Spectral Filtering for Optical Coherence Tomography

Abstract

We report a technique that improves the spatial resolution of optical coherence tomography (OCT) by utilizing fiber-based spectral filtering. The proposed technique improves the resolution by filtering out the erbium’s characteristic peak from the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source spectrum, and reshaping the spectrum to Gaussian-like. We used a long period fiber grating (LPG) and an erbium doped fiber (EDF) absorber for the spectral filtering. An in-house made ASE source as well as a commercial ASE source [ASE-FL7002] was used as the OCT sources to study the proposed technique. The resolution of the OCT based on an in-house made ASE source is enhanced from 200 to 40 ㎛ with an LPG. While, the resolution of the OCT based on a commercial ASE source is enhanced from 25 to 19 ㎛ with the aid of an EDF absorber. However, sidelobes still exist in the interferogram due to imperfect spectral filtering, which limited the resolution. Further enhancement in the spatial resolution of the OCT system using the ASE source is possible with the aid of cascaded LPGs and/or carefully designed EDF absorber.