MEMS tunable VCSEL light source for ultrahigh speed 60kHz - 1MHz axial scan rate and long range centimeter class OCT imaging

Abstract

This paper demonstrates new wavelength swept light source technology, MEMS tunable VCSELs, for OCT imaging. The VCSEL achieves a combination of ultrahigh sweep speeds, wide spectral tuning range, flexibility in sweep trajectory, and extremely long coherence length, which cannot be simultaneously achieved with other technologies. A second generation prototype VCSEL is optically pumped at 980nm and a low mass electrostatically tunable mirror enables high speed wavelength tuning centered at ~1310nm with ~110nm of tunable bandwidth. Record coherence length >100mm enables extremely long imaging range. By changing the drive waveform, a single 1310nm VCSEL was driven to sweep at speeds from 100kHz to 1.2MHz axial scan rate with unidirectional and bidirectional high duty cycle sweeps. We demonstrate long range and high resolution 1310nm OCT imaging of the human anterior eye at 100kHz axial scan rate and imaging of biological samples at speeds of 60kHz - 1MHz. A first generation 1050nm device is shown to sweep over 100nm. The results of this study suggest that MEMS based VCSEL swept light source technology has unique performance characteristics and will be a critical technology for future ultrahigh speed and long depth range OCT imaging.