Endoscopic optical coherence tomography : design and application

This thesis presents an investigation on endoscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT). As a noninvasive imaging modality, OCT emerges as an increasingly important diagnostic tool for many clinical applications. Despite of many of its merits, such as high resolution and depth resolvability, a major limitation is the relatively shallow penetration depth in tissue (about 2∼3 mm). This is mainly due to tissue scattering and absorption. To overcome this limitation, people have been developing many different endoscopic OCT systems. By utilizing a minimally invasive endoscope, the OCT probing beam can be brought to the close vicinity of the tissue of interest and bypass the scattering of intervening tissues so that it can collect the reflected light signal from desired depth and provide a clear image representing the physiological structure of the region, which can not be disclosed by traditional OCT. In this thesis, three endoscope designs have been studied. While they rely on vastly different principles, they all converge to solve this long-standing problem.

A hand-held endoscope with manual scanning is first explored. When a user is holding a hand- held endoscope to examine samples, the movement of the device provides a natural scanning. We proposed and implemented an optical tracking system to estimate and record the trajectory of the device. By registering the OCT axial scan with the spatial information obtained from the tracking system, one can use this system to simply ‘paint’ a desired volume and get any arbitrary scanning pattern by manually waving the endoscope over the region of interest. The accuracy of the tracking system was measured to be about 10 microns, which is comparable to the lateral resolution of most OCT system. Targeted phantom sample and biological samples were manually scanned and the reconstructed images verified the method.

Next, we investigated a mechanical way to steer the beam in an OCT endoscope, which is termed as Paired-angle-rotation scanning (PARS). This concept was proposed by my colleague and we further developed this technology by enhancing the longevity of the device, reducing the diameter of the probe, and shrinking down the form factor of the hand-piece. Several families of probes have been designed and fabricated with various optical performances. They have been applied to different applications, including the collector channel examination for glaucoma stent implantation, and vitreous remnant detection during live animal vitrectomy.

Lastly a novel non-moving scanning method has been devised. This approach is based on the EO effect of a KTN crystal. With Ohmic contact of the electrodes, the KTN crystal can exhibit a special mode of EO effect, termed as space-charge-controlled electro-optic effect, where the carrier electron will be injected into the material via the Ohmic contact. By applying a high voltage across the material, a linear phase profile can be built under this mode, which in turn deflects the light beam passing through. We constructed a relay telescope to adapt the KTN deflector into a bench top OCT scanning system. One of major technical challenges for this system is the strong chromatic dispersion of KTN crystal within the wavelength band of OCT system. We investigated its impact on the acquired OCT images and proposed a new approach to estimate and compensate the actual dispersion. Comparing with traditional methods, the new method is more computational efficient and accurate. Some biological samples were scanned by this KTN based system. The acquired images justified the feasibility of the usage of this system into a endoscopy setting. My research above all aims to provide solutions to implement an OCT endoscope. As technology evolves from manual, to mechanical, and to electrical approaches, different solutions are presented. Since all have their own advantages and disadvantages, one has to determine the actual requirements and select the best fit for a specific application.

Single layer lead iodide : computational exploration of structural, electronic and optical properties, strain induced band modulation and the role of spin-orbital-coupling

Graphitic like layered materials exhibit intriguing electronic structures and thus the search for new types of two-dimensional (2D) monolayer materials is of great interest for developing novel nano-devices. By using density functional theory (DFT) method, here we for the first time investigate the structure, stability, electronic and optical properties of monolayer lead iodide (PbI2). The stability of PbI2 monolayer is first confirmed by phonon dispersion calculation. Compared to the calculation using generalized gradient approximation, screened hybrid functional and spin-orbit coupling effects can not only predicts an accurate bandgap (2.63 eV), but also the correct position of valence and conduction band edges. The biaxial strain can tune its bandgap size in a wide range from 1 eV to 3 eV, which can be understood by the strain induced uniformly change of electric field between Pb and I atomic layer. The calculated imaginary part of the dielectric function of 2D graphene/PbI2 van der Waals type hetero-structure shows significant red shift of absorption edge compared to that of a pure monolayer PbI2. Our findings highlight a new interesting 2D material with potential applications in nanoelectronics and optoelectronics.

Optical Waveguides and Structures for Short Haul Optical Communication Channels within Printed Circuit Boards

Optical waveguides have shown promising results for use within printed circuit boards. These optical waveguides have higher bandwidth than traditional copper transmission systems and are immune to electromagnetic interference. Design parameters for these optical waveguides are needed to ensure an optimal link budget. Modeling and simulation methods are used to determine the optimal design parameters needed in designing the waveguides. As a result, optical structures necessary for incorporating optical waveguides into printed circuit boards are designed and optimized. Embedded siloxane polymer waveguides are investigated for their use in optical printed circuit boards. This material was chosen because it has low absorption, high temperature stability, and can be deposited using common processing techniques. Two sizes of waveguides are investigated, 50 $unit{mu m}$ multimode and 4 - 9 $unit{mu m}$ single mode waveguides. A beam propagation method is developed for simulating the multimode and single mode waveguide parameters. The attenuation of simulated multimode waveguides are able to match the attenuation of fabricated waveguides with a root mean square error of 0.192 dB. Using the same process as the multimode waveguides, parameters needed to ensure a low link loss are found for single mode waveguides including maximum size, minimum cladding thickness, minimum waveguide separation, and minimum bend radius. To couple light out-of-plane to a transmitter or receiver, a structure such as a vertical interconnect assembly (VIA) is required. For multimode waveguides the optimal placement of a total internal reflection mirror can be found without prior knowledge of the waveguide length. The optimal placement is found to be either 60 µm or 150 µm away from the end of the waveguide depending on which metric a designer wants to optimize the average output power, the output power variance, or the maximum possible power loss. For single mode waveguides a volume grating coupler is designed to couple light from a silicon waveguide to a polymer single mode waveguide. A focusing grating coupler is compared to a perpendicular grating coupler that is focused by a micro-molded lens. The focusing grating coupler had an optical loss of over -14 dB, while the grating coupler with a lens had an optical loss of -6.26 dB.

Effects in ultrafast laser micromachining PMMA-based optical fibre grating

Ultrafast laser owns extreme small beam size and high pulse intensity which enable spatial localised modification either on the surface or in the bulk of materials. Therefore, ultrafast laser has been widely used to micromachine optical fibres to alter optical structures. In order to do the precise control of the micromachining process to achieve the desired structure and modification, investigations on laser parameters control should be carried out to make better understanding of the effects in the laser micromachining process. These responses are important to laser machining, most of which are usually unknown during the process. In this work, we report the real time monitored results of the reflection of PMMA based optical fibre Bragg gratings (POFBGs) during excimer ultraviolet laser micromachining process. Photochemical and thermal effects have been observed during the process. The UV radiation was absorbed by the PMMA material, which consequently induced the modifications in both spatial structure and material properties of the POFBG. The POFBG showed a significant wavelength blue shift during laser micromachining. Part of it attributed to UV absorption converted thermal energy whilst the other did not disappear after POFBG cooling off, which attributed to UV induced photodegradation in POF.

Modifying the band gap and optical properties of Germanium nanowires by surface termination

Semiconductor nanowires, based on silicon (Si) or germanium (Ge) are leading candidates for many ICT applications, including next generation transistors, optoelectronics, gas and biosensing and photovoltaics. Key to these applications is the possibility to tune the band gap by changing the diameter of the nanowire. Ge nanowires of different diameter have been studied with H termination, but, using ideas from chemistry, changing the surface terminating group can be used to modulate the band gap. In this paper we apply the generalised gradient approximation of density functional theory (GGA-DFT) and hybrid DFT to study the effect of diameter and surface termination using –H, –NH2 and –OH groups on the band gap of (001), (110) and (111) oriented germanium nanowires. We show that the surface terminating group allows both the magnitude and the nature of the band gap to be changed. We further show that the absorption edge shifts to longer wavelength with the –NH2 and –OH terminations compared to the –H termination and we trace the origin of this effect to valence band modifications upon modifying the nanowire with –NH2 or –OH. These results show that it is possible to tune the band gap of small diameter Ge nanowires over a range of ca. 1.1 eV by simple surface chemistry.

“Albedo dome”: a method for measuring spectral flux-reflectance in a laboratory for media with long optical paths

A method is presented for accurate measurement of spectral flux-reflectance (albedo) in a laboratory, for media with long optical path lengths, such as snow and ice. The approach uses an acrylic hemispheric dome, which, when placed over the surface being studied, serves two functions: (i) it creates an overcast “sky” to illuminate the target surface from all directions within a hemisphere, and (ii) serves as a platform for measuring incident and backscattered spectral radiances, which can be integrated to obtain fluxes. The fluxes are relative measurements and because their ratio is used to determine flux-reflectance, no absolute radiometric calibrations are required. The dome and surface must meet minimum size requirements based on the scattering properties of the surface. This technique is suited for media with long photon path lengths since the backscattered illumination is collected over a large enough area to include photons that reemerge from the domain far from their point of entry because of multiple scattering and small absorption. Comparison between field and laboratory albedo of a portable test surface demonstrates the viability of this method.

Thermal Treatments of Fe—Mn Alkoxide of Glycerol: Infrared absorption and emission

Synthetic Fe—Mn alkoxide of glycerol samples are submitted to controlled heating conditions and examined by IR absorption spectroscopy. On the other hand, the same sample is studied by infrared emission spectroscopy (IRES), upon heating in situ from 100 to 600°C. The spectral techniques employed in this contribution, especially IRES, show that as a result of the thermal treatments ferromagnetic oxides (manganese ferrite) are formed between 350 and 400°C. Some further spectral changes are seen at higher temperatures.