Computationally image-corrected dual-comb microscopy with a free-running single-cavity dual-comb fiber laser

Area of Science:

• Optical Imaging
• Metrology
• Laser Physics

Background:

• Dual-comb microscopy (DCM) offers scan-less, full-field, simultaneous confocal amplitude and phase imaging.
• Traditional DCM requires two complex, costly, frequency-stabilized optical-frequency comb (OFC) sources, limiting practicality.
• A need exists for simplified and cost-effective DCM implementations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a low-complexity OFC source for DCM.
• To address image blurring caused by timing jitter in the simplified DCM.
• To demonstrate the effectiveness of computational image correction for enhanced DCM performance.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a bidirectional single-cavity dual-comb fiber laser (SCDCFL) as a simplified OFC source for DCM.
• Applied computational image correction algorithms to mitigate image blur from residual timing jitter.
• Performed nanometer-order step surface profilometry to validate the corrected DCM system.

Main Results:

• Successfully implemented DCM with a single, low-complexity OFC source (SCDCFL).
• Computational image correction significantly reduced image blur in static object imaging.
• Achieved nanometer-order step surface profilometry with a 14.0 nm uncertainty, demonstrating system accuracy.

Conclusions:

• The proposed SCDCFL-based DCM with computational image correction enhances DCM practicality and generality.
• This approach overcomes the complexity and cost limitations of traditional DCM systems.
• Preliminary experiments suggest potential for extending computational correction to dynamic object imaging.