We present the first demonstration of shot-noise limited supercontinuum-based spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) with an axial resolution of 5.9 μm at a center wavelength of 1370 nm. Current supercontinuum-based SD-OCT systems cannot be operated in the shot-noise limited detection regime because of severe pulse-to-pulse relative intensity noise of the supercontinuum source. To overcome this disadvantage, we have developed a low-noise supercontinuum source based on an all-normal dispersion (ANDi) fiber, pumped by a femtosecond laser. The noise performance of our 90 MHz ANDi fiber-based supercontinuum source is compared to that of two commercial sources operating at 80 and 320 MHz repetition rate. We show that the low-noise of the ANDi fiber-based supercontinuum source improves the OCT images significantly in terms of both higher contrast, better sensitivity, and improved penetration. From SD-OCT imaging of skin, retina, and multilayer stacks we conclude that supercontinuum-based SD-OCT can enter the domain of shot-noise limited detection.

我们首次展示了基于散粒噪声限制的超连续谱的光谱域光学相干断层扫描 (SD-OCT)，其轴向分辨率为 5.9 μm，中心波长为 1370 nm。由于超连续谱源的严重脉冲到脉冲相对强度噪声，当前基于超连续谱的 SD-OCT 系统不能在散粒噪声受限的检测机制中运行。为了克服这个缺点，我们开发了一种基于全法向色散 (ANDi) 光纤的低噪声超连续光源，由飞秒激光器泵浦。我们的基于 90 MHz ANDi 光纤的超连续谱源的噪声性能与两个以 80 和 320 MHz 重复率运行的商业源的噪声性能进行了比较。我们表明，基于 ANDi 光纤的超连续谱光源的低噪声在更高的对比度、更好的灵敏度和更好的穿透力方面显着改善了 OCT 图像。从皮肤、视网膜和多层堆叠的 SD-OCT 成像我们得出结论，基于超连续谱的 SD-OCT 可以进入散粒噪声限制检测领域。