Optical sources for optical coherence tomography (OCT)

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) continues to evolve at a pace of doubling the number of communications every three years. Several OCT parameters depend critically on the properties of the optical source. A major impetus in OCT progress in the last five years has been the development of novel large band tunable sources, with tuning rates exceeding 1. MHz. After a succinct presentation of OCT principles and how the optical source parameters impact the OCT performance, large bandwidth optical sources are presented, useful for time domain OCT and spectral OCT using a spectrometer. The chapter concentrates on recent research results, presenting several concepts of tunable lasers for spectral OCT, where the depth information is obtained by tuning such lasers. This is an active research direction promoted by the community of laser physicists and OCT developers, and it is expected that further progress in this field will impact the shape of future OCT technology. © 2013 Woodhead Publishing Limited All rights reserved.