In this work we raise the question of noise suppression by statistical analysis of Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) data vs. Time-to-digital converter (TDC) sampled data. The current technology options are identified. We analyze realistic scenarios through computer simulation and conclude that TDC has the same statistical potential as ADC, but current devices offer insufficient memory depth for long range, low signal to noise ratio laser range-finders’ applications.
A pulse driver based on inductive storage and discharge is developed for driving short 1-5ns current pulses through laser diodes. This driver overcomes the laser diode impedance matching challenge by coil discharge through the laser diode which produces a high compliance 100V open circuit pulse current source. The pulse driver is demonstrated in a laser ranging experiment which employs linear PD amplifier and time gated receiver. The aim of this laser ranging system is immunity to optical interference and capability of ranging through reflecting objects that are not of interest, like water surface or vegetation.
We show a fast settling digital laser controller with pulse width modulation (PWM) current drive output. By using self learning feed forward and delayed proportional integral and differential (PID) feedback control, the drive current settles faster than the digital control loop execution time. The feed forward model is updated based on parameters learned from stable feedback operation. Pulse modulation settling time and stable high efficient CW operation is made possible with this approach. The laser diode controller is well suited for pulse modulation or electrical gating of high power laser diodes due to its high efficiency and over dampened settling.
In this work we propose a laser diode pulse modulation algorithm suitable for implementation in microcontrollers. This algorithm overcomes the speed limitations in microcontroller based laser pulse drivers. A feed forward signal is added to a proportional integral and differential (PID) feedback signal after a settling time. The initial feed forward control gives a fast rise time (<5 μs) and the PID feedback ensure immunity to drift for large pulse widths. This algorithm enables a settling time 10 times faster than the PID settling time. The controller is self-learning and updates the feed forward estimator based on the settled feedback control output. The use of pulse width modulation (PWM) for digital to analog conversion scales well to high power laser diodes due to its high efficiency.
We are presenting an inversion estimator based controller for master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) laser systems. The controller is here applied to a Ytterbium doped MOPA fiber laser. The control algorithm regulates the pump power to limit the amplifier gain, so operation is restricted to the boundaries set by damage threshold or nonlinearities. In particular, it allows low pulse repetition frequency operation down to single shot and arbitrary gating.
The imaging speed of optical resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM) using pulsed excitation is fundamentally limited by the range ambiguity condition, which defines the maximum laser pulse repetition frequency (PRF). To operate at this theoretical upper limit and maximize acquisition speed, a custom-built fiber laser capable of operating at a PRF of up to 2 MHz was combined with a fast laser scanning optical OR-PAM system based on a stationary fiber-optic ultrasound sensor. A large area (10 mm × 10 mm) of the mouse ear was imaged within 8 s, when acquiring 16 million A-lines and operating the laser at a PRF of 2 MHz. This corresponds to a factor of four improvement in imaging speed compared to the fastest OR-PAM system previously reported. The ability to operate at high-imaging frame rates also allows the capture of hemodynamic events such as blood flow. It is considered that this system offers opportunities for high throughput imaging and visualizing dynamic physiological events using OR-PAM.
Photoacoustic signals are typically generated using Q-switched Nd:YAG pumped OPO systems, as they can provide the necessary nanosecond pulse durations with mJ pulse energies required for photoacoustic tomography. However, these sources are often bulky, require external water cooling and regular maintenance and provide low pulse repetition frequencies (PRF<100Hz) thus limiting image frame rate.
Fibre lasers can overcome these limitations and additionally offer much greater flexibility in their temporal output characteristics (e.g. pulse shaping and duration). Although fibre lasers have been used in optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy, they have found limited application in widefield photoacoustic tomography (PAT) due to the relatively low pulse energy (<1mJ) provided by commercial systems. These low pulse energies are a consequence of small core diameter (<25m) fibres required to achieve a high beam quality. However, for widefield PAT, high beam quality is not a requirement and therefore fibre lasers with larger core diameters (>100m) can be used, enabling significantly higher pulse energies (>10mJ) to be achieved.
A novel compact fibre laser which uses a custom drawn large core diameter fibre (100m) to provide high pulse energies (15mJ) and variable PRFs (100Hz-1kHz) and pulse durations (10-400ns) has been developed and evaluated. The fibre laser was combined with a fast Fabry Perot (FP) scanner in order to evaluate its suitability for PAT of biological tissue. The high PRF (>400Hz) of the laser has allowed tomographic images of the microvasculature of the palm of a hand to be obtained in less than one second, significantly quicker than previously achieved with a FP scanner. In addition, the ability to arbitrarily vary the temporal shape of the laser pulse offers new opportunities for controlling the acoustic frequency content of the photoacoustic signal in order to optimise penetration depth and image resolution. For example, the laser pulse duration can be increased in order to shift the acoustic frequency components to lower frequencies which are less attenuated by tissue acoustic absorption and thus improve SNR. To investigate these concepts, a tissue mimicking phantom was imaged for a range of tailored excitation pulses (e.g. different pulse durations, trains of pulses) and their effect on the contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and image resolution observed.
A novel compact fibre laser, able to provide higher pulse energies (>10mJ) than previously reported and with enhanced functionality is presented. It is demonstrated that fibre lasers are a viable alternative to standard Q-switched lasers for photoacoustic tomographic applications in medicine and biology.
Two custom fibre lasers have been developed. One is designed for widefield photoacoustic tomography (PAT) and uses a custom drawn large core diameter fibre (100μm) to provide high pulse energies (5mJ). It also provides a variable pulse repetition frequency (100Hz-400Hz) and pulse duration (10-150ns) and is compact (of comparable dimensions to a desktop PC) and does not require external water cooling. This system was used to acquire in vivo images of the subcutaneous microvasculature in the human palm. The second laser is designed for Optical Resolution Photoacoustic Microscopy (OR-PAM) and provides a high quality beam (M2<1.1), pulse energies >1μJ with a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) up to 2MHz, and a 532nm emission wavelength. The high PRF of this laser was exploited for ultra-fast image acquisition. The compact size and enhanced functionality of these lasers offers a major opportunity to facilitate the translation of photoacoustic imaging to practical applications in medicine and biology.
The origin of random highly peaked backward pulses arising from(in) pulsed master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA)
fiber lasers systems is studied. These large amplitude short duration pulses when compared to the Rayleigh backscattering may lead to catastrophic failures. This paper presents a systematic study of the backscatter using different seed sources (externally and directly modulated) in a hardened MOPA setup and a delayed self-heterodyne RF domain spectrum analysis technique for its characterization. Fabry-Perot seeded non-polarization maintaining system is found to show hallmark Brillouin frequency shift. The frequency of occurrence strongly depends on the seed characteristics.
Evolution of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) with simultaneous seeding of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE)
and signal pulse on a forward pumped high power Ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber amplifier is studied. A cascaded
amplifier chain configuration is used for the study. It is shown that the generated Raman-stokes pulses occur together
with the signal pulse causing optical output signal pulse distortions. It is also experimentally demonstrated that
increasing the ASE seeded power the energy contained in the first-order Stokes Raman pulse can be significantly
reduced. The seeded ASE changes the gain dynamics of the high power amplifier stage, reducing SRS and having a
strong impact on the enabled extracted energy within the signal pulse. The signal and Raman spectral components are
discriminated and the temporal evolution of each component for different input ASE power levels is analyzed
individually. Quantitative results of the energy transferred from the signal to the Raman pulse can in this way be
accurately obtained.
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging at 1060 nm region proved to be a successful alternative in ophthalmology
not only for resolving intraretinal layers, but also for enabling sufficient penetration to monitor the sub-retinal
vasculature in the choroids when compared to most commonly used OCT imaging systems at 800 nm region. To
encourage further clinical research at this particular wavelength, we have developed a compact fiber optic source based
on amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) centered at ~1060 nm with ~70 nm spectral bandwidth at full-width half
maximum (FWHM) and output power >20 mW. Our approach is based on a combination of slightly shifted ASE
emission spectra from a combination of two rare-earth doped fibers (Ytterbium and Neodymium). Spectral shaping and
power optimization have been achieved using in-fiber filtering solutions. We have tested the performances of the source
in an OCT system optimized for this wavelength.
Recent developments on broadband optical sources emitting at 1050 nm wavelength for medical applications, in particular optical coherence tomography (OCT), have revealed enhanced depth penetration into the choroid, reduced scattering losses and improved image performances in eyes with turbid media, when compared to the most commercial
used semiconductor optical source technology at 820 nm. In this paper, we present our study of fibre optic broadband sources (BBS) at 1 micron region, based on the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) from rare-earth doped silica fibres for the integration into OCT systems. The target specifications for this type of sources are: 1050 nm central emission wavelength, with spectral width of ~70 nm, tens of miliwatts of output power and smoothly shaped output
spectra. Several combinations of rare-earth doped optical fibres integrated into different fibre optic configurations have
been tested. Optical bandwidth optimization and spectral shaping using different fibre optic techniques are presented and
their autocorrelation function compared.
The high gain offered by Erbium doped fiber amplifiers has, since its first demonstration, been explored in lasers and super fluorescence sources. Although such devices have been the topic for numerous scientific publications only a few configurations have resulted in commercial products. We have identified the principal reasons for this to be the difficulty in obtaining single longitudinal mode laser operation in the inherently long laser cavities and the tendency of superfluorescence fiber sources (SFS) to show spurious lasing in high power operation. In this manuscript we show some results of our effort to deal with these obstacles. A technique based on a saturable absorber (SA) grating filter is shown to assure stable single longitudinal mode lasing even when the laser cavity is subject to temperature variations. The saturable absorber filter has a narrow passband and dynamically tracks the lasing mode. An all- polarization maintaining (PM) fiber ring cavity in combination with a saturable absorber filter provides a solution for stable single mode, single polarization laser operation. Progress on amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) superfluorescence sources is fueled by improvements in available pump power ratings. However spurious lasing is limiting the spectral power density of the broadband emission. We present techniques based on tailored optical feedback using filtered ASE seeding or Faraday rotator (FR) mirror which increases lasing threshold and thus the achievable output power. These advances have allowed the manufacture of fiber optic sources which maintain their performance parameters over time even when subject to temperature and vibration perturbations found in real applications.
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