Abstract

Fourier domain mode-locked (FDML) lasers are rapidly wavelength-swept continuous-wave (cw) light sources, providing a large wavelength sweep range (>100 nm) with narrow instantaneous linewidths (<0.1 nm) at sweep repetition rates of up to 5 MHz [1]. In biomedical imaging, these lasers have become the light source of choice for high speed optical coherence tomography (OCT) [1]. Furthermore, picosecond pulses have been generated by temporal compression of the cw FDML output, constituting a fundamentally new approach of ultrafast optical pulse generation with many potential applications [2].

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