Investigations of OCT imaging performance using a unique source providing several spectral wavebands

The authors report investigations into the suitability of a broadband supercontinuum fiber laser (SCFL) for use in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). The supercontinuum of light extending from 400 nm to 1800 nm can be used selectively in several spectral wavebands from 600 nm to 1700 nm in order to characterize the performance of single mode (SM) fiber OCT systems through spectral and auto-correlation measurements, dispersion measurements and image acquisition. Spectral selection and tailoring is made possible through a combination of bandpass optical filters. In addition, for the first time, given the optical bandwidth available, we perform evaluation of effective noise bandwidths which take into consideration the spectral behavior of the optical splitter in the balanced detection receiver.