Fiber Fabry-Perot tunable filter based Fourier domain mode locking swept laser source

An all-fiber Fourier domain mode locking (FDML) swept laser source at 1300 nm for swept source optical coherence tomography is reported. The swept laser source is realized with power amplification and laser resonator which includes gain medium, tunable filter and dispersion managed delay line. FDML swept laser can realize high-speed tuning, and phase is stable since its highly stable mode locking operation. The turning range of fiber Fabry-Perot tunable filter (FFP-TF) based FDML swept laser is 130 nm, and the 3 dB bandwidth is 70 nm with an average output power of 11 mW. The tunable speed of FDML laser is 48.12 kHz compared with 8 kHz of short-cavity FFP-TF based swept laser. The axial resolution in OCT imaging of FDML swept laser is 7.8 μm (in tissue), which is improved by 1.9 μm compared with that of short-cavity swept laser.