KEYWORDS: Data acquisition, Sensors, Signal detection, Signal to noise ratio, Fiber couplers, Biomedical optics, Optical coherence tomography, Mirrors, Signal processing, Laser sources
Balanced detection is required to suppress relative intensity noise (RIN) in optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI). Because a 50/50 fiber coupler does not provide a 50% splitting ratio over the full sweeping wavelength, balanced detection by the coupler's differential output with a balanced receiver is not perfect. We have designed a new balancing scheme that detects two outputs of 50/50 coupler separately and corrects the spectral deviation in the digital domain. A better balanced detection scheme has been designed in this work. In stead of detecting the hardware balanced signal from the 50/50 fiber coupler, we digitize the two channel fringe signal independently and perform the signal balancing in the poset process. The new software based balancing significantly improves the RIN suppression. Afterward, a systematic noise analysis has been performed on the 1050nm OFDI system. The results demonstrate a RIN suppression of 33dB by spectrally corrected balanced detection, which is 11dB more that regular balanced detection.
By introducing microfluidic plugs into interior fiber microchannels, we have developed a new category of active, tunable optical fiber. The positions and optical properties of the fluidic plugs can be directly controlled by utilizing actuators and pumps located on the fiber surface, thereby allowing the propagation characteristics of certain optical fiber modes to be usefully adjusted. These hybrid microfluidic/silica waveguides preserve the advantages of conventional, passive optical fiber, while at the same time providing versatile tuning capabilities. Examples of variable narrow and broadband all-fiber filters are described here. These fluidic fiber devices have the potential to be important technologies for next generation optical networks.
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