title: Miniature swept source for point of care optical frequency domain imaging.
abstract: Point of care (POC) medical technologies require portable, small, robust instrumentation for practical implementation. In their current embodiment, optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI) systems employ large form-factor wavelength-swept lasers, making them impractical in the POC environment. Here, we describe a first step toward a POC OFDI system by demonstrating a miniaturized swept-wavelength source. The laser is based on a tunable optical filter using a reflection grating and a miniature resonant scanning mirror. The laser achieves 75 nm of bandwidth centered at 1340 nm, a 0.24 nm instantaneous line width, a 15.3 kHz repetition rate with 12 mW peak output power, and a 30.4 kHz A-line rate when utilizing forward and backward sweeps. The entire laser system is approximately the size of a deck of cards and can operate on battery power for at least one hour.
authors.affiliation: Harvard Medical School and the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 50 BlossomSt., Boston, MA 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Brian D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Goldberg
authors.forename: S M R
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Motaghian Nezam
authors.forename: Priyanka
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jillella
authors.forename: Brett E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Bouma
authors.forename: Guillermo J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Tearney
mesh_terms: D044963:Biopsy, Fine-Needle / Q000295:instrumentation; D004867:Equipment Design; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology; D006801:Humans; D007834:Lasers; D008904:Miniaturization; D055096:Optical Devices; D055100:Optical Fibers; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems