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Uncertainty principle limit for swept source OCT
Abstract:
Swept source optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology makes use of dispersive Fourier transformation (DFT) methods. We theoretically and experimentally look at the distortions in the measurement of a 2-GHz wide Lorentzian optical filter. While accurate at low sweep rates, the measurement is distorted at high rates. The cross-over point is delimited by a time-bandwidth inequality reminiscent of the uncertainty principle. There are limitations at very high GHz/ns sweep rates, R. Unless ΔνΔt is much less than 1, the measurement is unreliable, where Δν = RΔt. This occurs because an attempt is made to measure the filter bandwidth in less than its ring-down time. Then we extrapolate as to what happens in swept source OCT where the Lorentzian filter is replaced with a Mach-Zehnder filter in the imaging and clock interferometers. We find that there is indeed a resolution limitation at very high sweep rates, but that the limit is not significant for current-day swept sources, such as a MEMS tunable VCSEL.
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