Light source for swept source optical coherence tomography based on cascaded distributed feedback lasers with engineered band gaps
The present invention is a tunable semiconductor laser for swept source optical coherence tomography, comprising a semiconductor substrate; a waveguide on top of said substrate with multiple sections of different band gap engineered multiple quantum wells (MQWs); a multiple of distributed feedback (DFB) gratings corresponding to each said band gap engineered MWQs, each DFB having a different Bragg grating period; and anti-reflection (AR) coating deposited on at least the laser emission facet of the laser to suppress the resonance of Fabry-Perot cavity modes. Each DFB MQWs section can be activated and tuned to lase across a fraction of the overall bandwidth as is achievable for a single DFB laser and all sections can be sequentially activated and tuned so as to collectively cover a broad bandwidth, or simultaneously activated and tuned to enable a tunable multi-wavelength laser. The laser hence can emit either a single lasing wavelength or a multiple of lasing wavelengths and is very suitable for swept-source OCT applications.
Latest Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc. Patents:
This application claims the benefit of the filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/714,286, filed Sep. 6, 2005, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTIONOne or more embodiments of the present invention relate generally to light sources for optical imaging. In particular, the invention is a semiconductor-based tunable laser for swept source optical coherence tomography.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONOptical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a technology for performing high-resolution cross sectional imaging that can provide images of tissue structure on the micron scale in situ and in real time (U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,501). In recent years, it has been demonstrated that Fourier domain OCT (FD-OCT), which so far employs either a wavelength swept source and a single detector or a broadband source and an array spectrometer, has significant advantages in both speed and signal-to-noise ratio as compared to time domain OCT (TD-OCT) (Choma, M. A. et al. (2003). “Sensitivity advantage of swept source and Fourier domain optical coherence tomography.” Optics Express 11(18): 2183-2189). In TD-OCT, the optical path length between the sample and reference arms needs to be mechanically scanned. In both swept source OCT (SS-OCT) and spectrometer-based spectral domain OCT (SD-OCT), the optical path length difference between the sample and reference arm is not mechanically scanned. Instead, a full axial scan (also called A-scan) is obtained in parallel for all points along the sample axial line within a short time determined by the wavelength sweep rate of the swept source (in SS-OCT) or the line scan rate of the line scan camera (in SD-OCT). As a result, the speed for each axial scan can be substantially increased as compared to the mechanical scanning speed of TD-OCT and this is especially beneficial for real-time imaging of living biological samples such as the human eye. In addition, SD-OCT and SS-OCT can provide substantially greater signal-to-noise ratio relative to TD-OCT, as explained by Mitsui (1999) “Dynamic Range of Optical Reflectometry with Spectral Interferometry.” Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 38(10): 6133-6137.
SS-OCT can be achieved using either a single lasing wavelength tunable laser or a multiple lasing wavelengths tunable laser.
A practical SS-OCT system requires a high speed swept source with a sweep rate of at least about 20 kHz that is continuously tunable over a broad tuning range (preferably greater than 50 nm). Current commercially available tunable lasers can be divided into electronically tuned lasers and mechanically tuned lasers. Electronically-tuned lasers are either limited in their tuning range (typically 5 nm to 10 nm for a single distributed feedback (DFB) laser), or discretely tunable in order to cover a wider range as in the case of sampled grating distributed feedback reflector (SG-DBR) lasers (see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,325, U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,392). The discretely tunable lasers described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,325 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,392 operate using a single gain section, and they tune using a Vernier effect between the two DBR end mirrors, so both DBR end mirrors and a phase-matching device must be simultaneously continuously tuned to produce discrete tuning; these features make this design inconvenient for SS-OCT. Most mechanically tunable lasers are slow. Some use fiber and piezo based Fabry-Perot (FP) filters (see for example Huber, R. et al. (2005) Optics Express 13(9): 3513-3528; and (2006) Optics Express 14(8): 3225-3237) and others use fast rotating polygon mirrors (see for example, US20050035295). For example, patent application US20050035295 and the article by Oh, W. Y. et al. (“Wide tuning range wavelength-swept laser with two semiconductor optical amplifiers.” Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE 17(3): 678-680) disclosed a wavelength tuning source for SS-OCT that employs a continuously rotating optical arrangement for lasing wavelength selection. The current price of a swept source suitable for OCT is very high (see for example, Thorlab Inc. Product Catalog, Vol. 17, (2005) page 469) and in addition, the demonstrated wavelength sweep rate is limited to about 20 kHz.
On the other hand, tunable semiconductor lasers developed for optical fiber communications either are step-tuned to fit the ITU grid (see for example, Amano, T. et al. (2005). “Optical frequency-domain reflectometry with a rapid wavelength-scanning superstructure-grating distributed Bragg reflector laser.” Applied Optics 44(5): 808-816) or, if continuously tunable, are very slow (see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,847,661) and they do not meet the requirement for an SS-OCT system, such as the high wavelength sweeping rate (more than 20 kHz) and the broad spectral range to be covered (e.g. 25 to 200 nm). Although there are various designs of semiconductor based tunable lasers (see for example, Muller, M. et al. (2003) “1.3-μm Continuously Tunable Distributed Feedback Laser With Constant Power Output Based on GalnNAs—GaAs”, Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE 15(7) 897-899; Buss J. et al. (2005) “Tunable Laser Diodes and Related Optical Sources” Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, N.J., and others as cited in this application, which are all incorporated in their entirety herein by reference), these lasers are not designed specifically for SS-OCT applications. In particular, there are attempts to cascade a few distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers along a single channel waveguide to achieve complex coupled DFB lasers (see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,936,994; U.S. Pat. No. 6,104,739; U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,824; Hong, J. et al. (1998) “Enhanced Wavelength Tuning Range in Two-Section Complex-Coupled DFB Lasers by Alternating Gain and Loss Coupling”, Journal of Lightwave Technology, 16(7): 1323). When the individual sections of these lasers are built on semiconductor structures having uniform energy band gap, there is a significant overlap of the optical gain curve associated with each DFB grating and the resulting lasers have limited tuning range.
In light of the above, there is hence a need in the art for a low cost continuously tunable laser that meets the requirement of a real time SS-OCT system.
The present invention is a new design for a widely continuously tunable semiconductor laser that can emit either a single lasing wavelength or multiple lasing wavelengths, which is very suitable for swept-source OCT applications. As shown in
The presently invented laser structure can be realized using two well-established technologies. The gain medium with sections of different band gap can be produced by semiconductor band gap engineering through quantum well intermixing (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,617,188), or selective area growth or regrowth (see for example T. van Caenegem et al, Progress in Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials 35(2-4): 263-268). The relatively narrowly-tunable laser resonators are produced using existing DFB laser technology. By cascading a number of tunable DBF lasers along a single waveguide, the cost of such a device can be substantially reduced as compared to that of the mechanically tunable lasers. Although, each DFB laser section can only be tuned over a relatively narrow range (e.g. 5 nm), by sequentially activating and tuning each section, the combined tuning range can hence be greatly increased. (For example, 10 sections can provide a 50 nm tuning range). In addition, the achievable tuning speed can be many orders of magnitude higher than that of the mechanical counterpart.
In a first preferred embodiment of
In a second preferred embodiment as shown in
One can have all the sections lase and hence sweep the multiple wavelengths together as a multi-wavelength laser source. In this case, the electrical pumping anode electrodes (314 for embodiment 1 and 414 for embodiment 2) can be made into one anode electrode to reduce the number of electrical connection pins for the laser. On the other hand, one can turn the sections on one at a time, sweeping each section for simple detection. In the latter case, for the second preferred embodiment, the wavelength tuning electrode 416 can be combined to one for all the gratings to reduce the electrode number, while each pumping electrode needs to be activated sequentially.
Suppose we have 20 sections, with each section 500 μm long, the output lasing power from each section can reach 10 to 40 mW and the complete laser die is 10 mm long which is feasible.
Note that there can be dead time 502 between turning one section off and turning the next section on as is shown in
Often one uses an auxiliary interferometer to monitor the wavelength sweep (for example, FIG. 5 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,956,355). Often the auxiliary interferometer is a Fabry-Perot etalon that provides a series of peaks in transmitted power, these peaks being uniformly spaced in inverse wavelength. In this multiple-section laser, the first transmission peak traversed by each section must be identified from among the many transmission peaks of the auxiliary interferometer. The relationship of wavelength λ versus time t of each section may be stable enough such that the identity of the first peak of a given section can be determined once by a wavelength measurement during initial calibration. If the sweep relationship is not that stable, one can use a second auxiliary interferometer with a different spacing of transmission peaks to uniquely identify the starting wavelength of each section based on its relationship to two incommensurate sets of transmission peaks.
The presently invented tunable semiconductor laser source is especially useful for SS-OCT applications. Meanwhile, the presently invented light source is also useful for other applications including sensing, spectroscopy and metrology.
Although various embodiments that incorporate the teachings of the present invention have been shown and described in detail herein, those skilled in the art can readily devise many other varied embodiments that still incorporate these teachings.
The following references are hereby incorporated by reference.
- US Patent Documents
- U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,325
- U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,501
- U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,392
- U.S. Pat. No. 5,936,994
- U.S. Pat. No. 5,956,355
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,104,739
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,824
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,617,188
- U.S. Pat. No. 6,847,661 US20050035295
- US patent application, Yan Zhou and Matthew J. Everett “Fourier domain optical coherence tomography employing a swept multi-wavelength laser and a multi-channel receiver” filed on Jul. 1, 2005, application Ser. No. 11/174,158
- Amano, T. et al. (2005). “Optical frequency-domain reflectometry with a rapid wavelength-scanning superstructure-grating distributed Bragg reflector laser.” Applied Optics 44(5): 808-816
- Buss J. et al. (2005) “Tunable Laser Diodes and Related Optical Sources” Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, N.J.
- Choma, M. A. et al. (2003). “Sensitivity advantage of swept source and Fourier domain optical coherence tomography.” Optics Express 11(18): 2183-2189
- Hong, J. et al. (1998) “Enhanced Wavelength Tuning Range in Two-Section Complex-Coupled DFB Lasers by Alternating Gain and Loss Coupling”, Journal of Lightwave Technology, 16(7): 1323
- Hong, J. et al. (1999) “Cascaded strongly gain-coupled (SGC) DFB lasers with 15-nm continuous-wavelength tuning”, Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE 11(10): 1214-1216.
- Hong, J., et al. (1999) “Matrix-grating strongly gain-coupled (MC-SGC) DFB lasers with 34-nm continuous wavelength tuning range” Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE 11(5): 515-517.
- Huber, R. et al. (2005). “Amplified, frequency swept lasers for frequency domain reflectometry and OCT imaging: design and scaling principles.” Optics Express 13(9): 3513-3528
- Huber, R., et al. (2006). “Fourier Domain Mode Locking (FDML): A new laser operating regime and applications for optical coherence tomography.” Optics Express 14(8): 3225-3237
- Muller, M. et al. (2003) “1.3-μm Continuously Tunable Distributed Feedback Laser With Constant Power Output Based on GalnNAs—GaAs”, Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE 15(7) 897-899;
- Mitsui T. (1999) “Dynamic Range of Optical Reflectometry with Spectral Interferometry.” Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 38(10): 6133-6137
- Oh, W. Y. et al. (“Wide tuning range wavelength-swept laser with two semiconductor optical amplifiers.” Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE 17(3): 678-680
- Thorlab Inc. Product Catalog, Vol. 17, (2005) page 469
- T. van Caenegem et al, Progress in Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials 35(2-4): 263-268 (1997)
Claims
1. A swept source OCT system comprising:
- a tunable light source;
- a beam splitter for dividing the light along a sample and a reference path;
- a photodetector for receiving light returned from both the sample and the reference paths and generating output signals as a function of time as the wavelength of the source is tuned;
- a processor for analyzing the output signals to derive a reflectance distribution along the sample path and wherein the tunable light source includes an elongated optical waveguide structure, with one end thereof defining a laser output facet;
- a linear series of distributed feedback gratings formed along the waveguide structure to define a series of resonant cavities;
- a series of semiconductor gain structures formed within the waveguide structure and aligned with the gratings, with the bandgap energy of the gain structure increasing towards said output facet; and
- a power supply for supplying current to the gratings and the gain structures in a manner to generate laser output from each resonant cavity and for wavelength tuning the output.
2. An OCT system as recited in claim 1, wherein a common current is supplied to a grating and the associated gain structure.
3. An OCT system as recited in claim 1, wherein current is independently supplied to a grating and the associated gain structure.
4. An OCT system as recited in claim 1, wherein current is simultaneously supplied to all the gratings and the gain structures and wherein the current is tuned so that a tuned, multi-wavelength output is generated.
5. An OCT system as recited in claim 1, wherein current is supplied to the gain structure of each of the associated resonant cavities, said current being controlled in manner so that each of the gain sections are sequentially activated and tuned one at a time so that a tuned, narrow-band output is generated.
6. A method of evaluating the reflectance distribution within a sample using swept source OCT comprising the steps of:
- providing a tunable light source, said light source including an elongated optical waveguide structure, with one end thereof defining a laser output facet, a linear series of distributed feedback gratings formed along the waveguide structure to define a series of resonant cavities, a series of semiconductor gain structures formed within the waveguide structure and aligned with the gratings, with the bandgap energy of the gain structures increasing towards said output facet, and a power supply for supplying current to the gratings and the gain structures in a manner to generate laser output from each resonant cavity and for wavelength tuning the output;
- dividing the light along a sample and a reference path;
- measuring light returned from both the sample and the reference paths and generating output signals as a function of time as the wavelength of the source is tuned; and
- analyzing the output signals to derive a reflectance distribution along the sample path and wherein the light source is operated by supplying current to the gratings and the gain structures in a manner to generate laser output from each resonant cavity and for wavelength tuning the output.
7. A method as recited in claim 6, wherein current is simultaneously supplied to all the gratings and the gain structures and wherein the current is tuned so that a tuned, multi-wavelength output is generated.
8. A method as recited in claim 6, wherein current is supplied to the gain structure of each of the associated resonant cavities, said current being controlled in manner so that each of the gain sections are sequentially activated and tuned one at a time so that a tuned, narrow-band output is generated.
7079718 | July 18, 2006 | Welch et al. |
7391520 | June 24, 2008 | Zhou et al. |
20050014300 | January 20, 2005 | Welch et al. |
20070002327 | January 4, 2007 | Zhou et al. |
- T. Amano et al., “Optical frequency-domain reflectometry with a rapid wavelength-scanning superstructure-grating distributed Bragg reflector laser,” Applied Optics, vol. 44, No. 5, Feb. 10, 2005, pp. 808-816.
- T. Van Caenegem et al., “Selective Area Growth on Planar Masked InP Substrates by Metal Organic Vapour Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE),” Prog. Crystal Growth and Charact., vol. 35 (1997), No. 2-4, pp. 263-288.
- M.A. Choma et al., “Sensitivity advantage of swept source and Fourier domain optical coherence tomography,” Optics Express, vol. 11, No. 18, Sep. 8, 2003, pp. 2183-2189.
- J. Hong et al., “Enhanced Wavelength Tuning Range in Two-Section Complex-Coupled DFB Lasers by Alternating Gain and Loss Coupling,” Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 16, No. 7, Jul. 1998, pp. 1323-1328.
- J. Hong et al., “Matrix-Grating Strongly Gain-Coupled (MG-SGC) DFB Lasers with 34-nm Continuous Wavelength Tuning Range,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 11, No. 5, May 1999, pp. 515-517.
- J. Hong et al., “Cascaded Strongly Gain-Coupled (SGC) DFB Lasers with 15-nm Continuous-Wavelength Tuning,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 11, No. 10, Oct. 1999, pp. 1214-1216.
- R. Huber et al., “Three-dimenional and C-mode OCT imaging with a compact, frequency swept laser source at 1300 nm,” Optics Express, vol. 13, No. 26, Dec. 26, 2005, pp. 10523-10529.
- R. Huber et al., “Fourier Domain Mode Locking (FDML): A new laser operating regime and applications for optical coherence tomography,” Optics Express, vol. 14, No. 8, Apr. 17, 2006, pp. 3225-3237.
- T. Mitsui, “Dynamic Range of Optical Reflectometry with Spectral Interferometry,” Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., vol. 38, Pt. 1, No. 10, Oct. 1999, pp. 6133-6137.
- M. Müller ller et al., “1.3-μm Continuously Tunable Distributed Feedback Laser With Constant Power Output Based on GaInNAs-GaAs,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 15, No. 7, Jul. 2003, pp. 897-899.
- B. Pezeshki, “New approaches to laser tuning,” Optics & Photonics News, May 2001, pp. 34-38.
- Catalogue/Brochure, “Optical Coherence Tomography,” by ThorLabs, Jan. 2006, 13 pages in length.
Type: Grant
Filed: Sep 8, 2009
Date of Patent: Sep 7, 2010
Assignee: Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc. (Dublin, CA)
Inventors: Yan Zhou (Pleasanton, CA), Keith E. O'Hara (San Ramon, CA)
Primary Examiner: Patrick J Connolly
Attorney: Morrison & Foerster LLP
Application Number: 12/555,622
International Classification: G01B 9/02 (20060101); G01B 11/02 (20060101);