Phase stable OCT with a 1050 nm tunable VCSEL and photonic integrated circuit

A turnkey phase-sensitive swept-source optical coherence tomography (OCT) system requires stabilization of both the swept source and main signal interferometer. We have provided stable clocking and triggering of a 1050 nm swept micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) by mounting a solid clock etalon and volume Bragg grating optical trigger inside a temperature-stabilized butterfly package. A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) provides a phase-stable main interferometer near the sample. This system is only sensitive to the motion of the sample, not to the fibers leading to and from the PIC. We provide optical frequency domain reflectivity measurements of the PIC performance. We also demonstrate OCT imaging as well as static and dynamic phase measurements of a Kindle e-book reader electrophoretic display.