Silicon photonic integrated circuits for optical coherence tomography

Low-cost photonic integrated circuits (PIC) become increasingly important in medical applications like optical coherence tomography (OCT) for eye care and endoscopy as well as in industrial metrology for distance scanning of surfaces and volumes. We report on two OCT systems fully integrated on a silicon-on- insulator (SOI) chip. With an on-chip reference path, we image objects in distances (5...10)mm from the chip edge with a depth resolution of 11μm and a dynamic range of 53dB . Employing an off-chip reference path, objects are imaged in distances (8000...8010)mm from the chip with a depth resolution of 30μm and a dynamic range of 60dB.