We present a novel, high-speed, polarization-sensitive, optical coherence tomography set-up for retinal imaging operating at a central wavelength of 1060 nm which was tested for in vivo imaging in healthy human volunteers. We use the system in combination with a Fourier domain mode locked laser with active spectral shaping which enables the use of forward and backward sweep in order to double the imaging speed without a buffering stage. With this approach and with a custom designed data acquisition system, we show polarization-sensitive imaging with an A-scan rate of 350 kHz. The acquired three-dimensional data sets of healthy human volunteers ...

Purpose: To investigate the reproducibility of automated lesion size detection in patients with geographic atrophy (GA) using polarization-sensitive spectral domain-OCT (PS-OCT) and to compare findings with scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO), fundus autofluorescence (FAF), and intensity based SD-OCT. Methods: 29 eyes of 22 patients with GA were examined by PS-OCT, selectively identifying the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). A novel segmentation algorithm was applied, automatically detecting and quantifying areas of RPE atrophy. The reproducibility of the algorithm was assessed and lesion sizes were correlated with manually delineated SLO, FAF and intensity based SD-OCT images to validate the clinical applicability of PS-OCT in ...

We report on a new swept source polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography scan engine that is based on polarization maintaining (PM) fiber technology. The light source is a Fourier domain mode locked laser with a PM cavity that operates in the 1300 nm wavelength regime. It is equipped with a PM buffer stage that doubles the fundamental sweep frequency of 54.5 kHz. The fiberization allows coupling of the scan engine to different delivery probes. In a first demonstration, we use the system for imaging human skin at an A-scan rate of 109 kHz. The system illuminates the sample with ...

Polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) is a functional extension of OCT. In addition to imaging based on tissue reflectivity, PS-OCT also enables depth-resolved mapping of sample polarization properties such as phase-retardation, birefringent axis orientation, Stokes vectors, and degree of polarization uniformity (DOPU). In this study, PS-OCT was used to investigate the polarization properties of melanin. In-vitro measurements in samples with varying melanin concentrations revealed polarization scrambling, i.e. depolarization of backscattered light. Polarization scrambling in the PS-OCT images was more pronounced for higher melanin concentrations and correlated with the concentration of the melanin granules in the phantoms. Moreover, in-vivo ...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) in the 1060nm range is interesting for in vivo imaging of the human posterior eye segment (retina, choroid, sclera), as it permits a long penetration depth. Complementary to structural images, polarization-sensitive OCT (PS-OCT) images visualize birefringent, polarization-maintaining or depolarizing areas within the sample. This information can be used to distinguish retinal layers and structures with different polarization properties. High imaging speed is crucial for imaging ocular structures in vivo in order to minimize motion artifacts while acquiring sufficiently large datasets. Here, we demonstrate PS-OCT imaging at 350 kHz A-scan rate using a two-channel PS-OCT system in ...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) in the 1060nm range is interesting for in vivo imaging of the human posterior eye segment (retina, choroid, sclera) due to low absorption in water and deep penetration into the tissue. Rapidly tunable light sources, such as Fourier domain mode-locked (FDML) lasers, enable acquisition of densely sampled three-dimensional datasets covering a wide field of view. However, semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs)-the typical laser gain media for swept sources-for the 1060nm band could until recently only provide relatively low output power and bandwidth. We have implemented an FDML laser using a new SOA featuring broad gain bandwidth ...