Millimeter-scale chip-based supercontinuum generation for optical coherence tomography.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34533990.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abg8869 and PMC identifier 8448444.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
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Abstract
Supercontinuum sources for optical coherence tomography (OCT) have raised great interest as they provide broad bandwidth to enable high resolution and high power to improve imaging sensitivity. Commercial fiber-based supercontinuum systems require high pump powers to generate broad bandwidth and customized optical filters to shape/attenuate the spectra. They also have limited sensitivity and depth performance. We introduce a supercontinuum platform based on a 1-mm<sup>2</sup> Si<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub> photonic chip for OCT. We directly pump and efficiently generate supercontinuum near 1300 nm without any postfiltering. With a 25-pJ pump pulse, we generate a broadband spectrum with a flat 3-dB bandwidth of 105 nm. Integrating the chip into a spectral domain OCT system, we achieve 105-dB sensitivity and 1.81-mm 6-dB sensitivity roll-off with 300-μW optical power on sample. We image breast tissue to demonstrate strong imaging performance. Our chip will pave the way toward portable OCT and incorporating integrated photonics into optical imaging technologies.