Abstract

We demonstrate superluminescent diodes (SLDs) for visible light optical coherence tomography (OCT) of the human retina. SLDs are less costly than supercontinuum sources and have lower intrinsic excess noise, enabling imaging closer to the shot noise limit. While single SLDs are not broadband, they provide power concentrated at specific wavelengths relevant to retinal function. As a new, to the best of our knowledge, application, we image human macular pigments (MPs), which are thought to both aid vision and protect against advanced age-related macular degeneration. Using the unique depth-resolved capabilities of OCT, we localize MPs in depth to Henle’s fibers beneath the foveal pit in the living human retina. Our approach reduces the cost of visible light OCT to nearly that of near-infrared (NIR) OCT while also providing information about clinically relevant MPs which cannot be measured in the NIR.

© 2023 Optica Publishing Group

Raman imaging of human macular pigments

Werner Gellermann, Igor V. Ermakov, Robert W. McClane, and Paul S. Bernstein
Opt. Lett. 27(10) 833-835 (2002)

Resonance Raman imaging of macular pigment distributions in the human retina

Mohsen Sharifzadeh, Da-You Zhao, Paul S. Bernstein, and Werner Gellermann
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 25(4) 947-957 (2008)

Nonmydriatic fluorescence-based quantitative imaging of human macular pigment distributions

Mohsen Sharifzadeh, Paul S. Bernstein, and Werner Gellermann
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 23(10) 2373-2387 (2006)

Visible light OCT improves imaging through a highly scattering retinal pigment epithelial wall

Tingwei Zhang, Aaron M. Kho, Robert J. Zawadzki, Ravi S. Jonnal, Glenn Yiu, and Vivek J. Srinivasan
Opt. Lett. 45(21) 5945-5948 (2020)

Ultrahigh resolution optical coherence tomography imaging with a broadband superluminescent diode light source

Tony H. Ko, Desmond C. Adler, James G. Fujimoto, Dmitry Mamedov, Viatcheslav Prokhorov, Vladimir Shidlovski, and Sergei Yakubovich
Opt. Express 12(10) 2112-2119 (2004)