Dispersion-Tuned Swept Lasers for Optical Coherence Tomography

Swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) is a powerful tool for fast medical imaging. For the real-time three-dimensional imaging, the wide tuning range over 100 nm and fast sweep rate over 100 kHz are typically required. We have proposed a new wavelength-swept laser for SS-OCT. It is based on a principle called dispersion tuning. Since the cavity contains no mechanical components, such as tunable filters, we could achieve the very high sweep rate. In this paper, we describe the principle of the dispersion-tuned swept laser and present our recent works on the applications to the SS-OCT system.