查看文章

Enabled by the ultrahigh-speed all-optical wavelength-swept mechanism and broadband optical amplification, amplified optical time-stretch optical coherence tomography (AOT-OCT) has recently been demonstrated as a practical alternative to achieve ultrafast A-scan rate of multi-MHz in OCT. With the aim of identifying the optimal scenarios for MHz operation in AOT-OCT, we here present a theoretical framework to evaluate its performance metric. In particular, the analysis discusses the unique features of AOT-OCT, such as its superior coherence length, and the relationship between the optical gain and the A-scan rate. More importantly, we evaluate the sensitivity of AOT-OCT in the MHz regime under the influence of the amplifier noise. Notably, the model shows that AOT-OCT is particularly promising when operated at the A-scan rate well beyond multi-MHz – not trivially achievable by any existing swept-source …