We report on the development of an all-fiber frequency-swept laser light source in the 1050 nm range based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) with improved bandwidth due to multiple gain media. It is demonstrated that even two SOAs with nearly equal gain spectra can improve the performance of the light source when installed in series. This Serial SOA configuration (SSOA) is compared with the common MasterOscillator/Power Amplifier architecture (MOPA) where a single SOA is used as laser gain medium in the resonator and a second one outside as booster. We show that for high sweep rates (20 kHz) the SSOA configuration can maintain a significantly higher bandwidth (~50% higher) compared to the MOPA architecture. Correspondingly narrower point spread functions can be generated in a Michelson interferometer.

Date Published: 20 February 2009
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7168, Optical Coherence Tomography and Coherence Domain Optical Methods in Biomedicine XIII, 716824 (20 February 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.809068

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7168:
Optical Coherence Tomography and Coherence Domain Optical Methods in Biomedicine XIII
James G. Fujimoto; Joseph A. Izatt; Valery V. Tuchin, Editor(s)