Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group

Frequency Sweep Jitter and Wander of a Vernier-Tuned Distributed Bragg Reflector (VT-DBR) Laser at 1550 nm in OCT Applications

Not Accessible

Your library or personal account may give you access

Abstract

The short-term jitter and longer-term wander of the frequency sweep profile of a Vernier-Tuned Distributed Bragg Reflector (VT-DBR) laser at 1550 nm used in OCT applications is characterized in this work. The VT-DBR has demonstrated success in source-swept OCT (SSOCT), performing both intensity [1] and phase-sensitive [2] OCT. The purpose of this paper is to investigate one of the unique aspects of the VT-DBR laser that makes it successful in OCT: the stability of the linear optical frequency sweep of the source. Jitter measurements of the optical frequency sweep are recorded using a 3-cavity 100 GHz free spectral range (FSR) solid etalon. A gas absorption reference cell is used for wander characterization. We report that the VT-DBR jitters by no more than 82 MHz RMS in optical frequency while sweeping at an 8 kHz repetition rate. Longer-term wander provides insight into the accuracy of the VT-DBR self-calibration routine which produces an intrinsically linear optical frequency sweep. Over an 8-hour data collection period, the system maintains a linear sweep with an optical frequency step of 105 MHz per 2.5 ns with +/- 3 kHz per 2.5 ns (+/- 0.03%) peak-to-peak deviation. We find that the absolute frequency drifts by 325 MHz (2.6pm) over the same 8-hour period with ambient temperature fluctuations of no more than 5 °C. Results show that using calibration with a gas reference cell, picometer absolute wavelength accuracy of the laser can be achieved at any time for a single sweep. Stability and accuracy limits are thought to be due to electronic drive circuitry in the current design.

© 2015 SPIE

PDF Article
More Like This
1060nm Vernier-Tuned Distributed Bragg Reflector (VT-DBR) Laser for Swept-Source OCT

Greg Bergdoll, Jason Ensher, and Dennis Derickson
FW4E.6 Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2015

Vernier-Tuned Single-Chip Semiconductor Laser for Optical Coherence Tomography Applications

Dennis Derickson, Chris Chiccone, David Gilbert, Michael Crawford, Michael Minneman, and Jason Ensher
BTu3A.89 Biomedical Optics (BIOMED) 2012

Monolithic integrated InP distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) lasers on (001) silicon

B. Tian, Z. Wang, M. Pantouvaki, W. Guo, P. Absil, J. Van Campenhout, C. Merckling, and D. Van Thourhout
CB_11_3 The European Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO/Europe) 2015

Select as filters


Select Topics Cancel
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved