Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a cross-sectional imaging technique with micron resolution that utilizes coherence ranging to perform non- invasive subsurface imaging of biological structures. The draw back of conventional OCT is that it requires mechanical motion of optical elements, which imposes a limit to image acquisition speed. On the other hand, optical frequency-domain reflectometry based OCT eliminates the mechanical motion of optics by incorporating a tunable laser source into the system. The lack of widely and rapidly tunable diode lasers at appropriate cost, however, has been the bottleneck for commercialization of OFDR based OCT. In recognizing this need CoreTek is proposing to develop a widely and rapidly tunable diode laser. The 980 nm micro-electro-mechanically tunable diode laser will provide factor of 2 enhancement in longitudinal resolution while shortening the image acquisition time by a factor of 1000. CoreTek will fabricate the widely tunable diode laser in Phase I and present the clinical demonstration in Phase II.
Potential applications include: Low-cost high-resolution tomograph equipment without motion-artifacts, Non-invasive monitoring of gases and chemicals in human body
