The Center

Equipment

As an NIH funded National Resource Center, CBORT maintains and provides access to a wide range of specialized OCT equipment for a broad spectrum of users. This includes experts within the OCT field as well as the researcher who is not familiar with the modality and would like to evaluate potential utility. Interested parties are encouraged to reach out through our Contact Page and CBORT members can work to discuss options for Collaboration and/or Service Projects.

General Equipment

  • Three optical fiber fusion splicers and a fiber optic coupler fabrication workstation for fabricating fiber optic systems and components.
  • Precision polisher for optical fibers and connectors.
  • Multiple optical spectrum analyzers, RF spectrum analyzers, oscilloscopes, and a beam profiler.
  • Multiple lasers including ultrafast titanium sapphire, Cr: forsterite and Cr: YAG along with harmonic generation capabilities for generating femtosecond pulses from the ultraviolet through the infrared. A Q-switched optical parametric oscillator provides nanosecond, high-energy pulses over the same spectral range. Multiple cw Nd:vanadate lasers provide 1.06 and 0.532 !m laser light. High power Tm lasers: fixed wavelength 10W, 1.9 µm; 5W tunable 1.8-1.9 µm. Modelocked ytterbium fiber laser with continuum generation covering 1.0 µm to 2.0 µm. A high-power, cw ytterbium fiber laser capable of emitting up to 400 W average power is complemented by a Raman frequency converter to cover emission from 1.06 µm to 1.42 µm.
  • Chemical hood, temperature-controlled water baths, refrigerator and oven and drilling machine.
  • Tissue embedding and dissection equipment for handling tissue samples.

OCT Systems

  • A commercial Spectralis OCT2 spectral-domain OCT system at 870 nm central wavelength and 50 nm bandwidth at 85 KHz, 30ºx30º (9 mm x 9 mm) field of view, with motion tracking through a commercial (Heidelberg Eng., Germany) ophthalmic interface with chin rest.
  • An ophthalmic 2IS Mueller polarization-sensitive frequency-domain system at 1 μm with 100 kHz repetition rate, 7 μm depth resolution, 30ºx30º (9 mm x 9 mm) field of view, with motion tracking through the commercial Spectralis OCT2 (Heidelberg Eng., Germany) ophthalmic interface with chin rest.
  • Three 1.3 μm frequency-domain systems with 54/54/100 kHz repetition rate, 9.4 μm depth resolution. Two configured as 2IS Stokes system using an electro-optic polarization modulator for inter-A-line polarization modulation. Systems are equipped with a galvanometer scanners for imaging biological samples or small animals.
  • A mobile 2IS Mueller polarization-sensitive OCT system employing a wavelength-swept laser source with 50 kHz A-line rate and polarization state depth multiplexing operating at 1300 nm. System is equipped with a galvanometer scanners for imaging biological samples or small animals.
  • A long-ranging depth VCSEL wavelength-swept 2IS Mueller polarization-sensitive OCT system with 100 kHz A-line rate and polarization state depth multiplexing operating at 1300 nm. System is equipped with a galvanometer scanners for imaging biological samples or small animals.

Additional Imaging Systems

  • Three Brillouin microscope systems: 532 nm or 780 nm wavelength.
  • One low-coherence interferometry instrument coupled with a Brillouin microscope.
  • One custom-built microfluidic system.
  • Numerous microscopes including Infrared, white light, fluorescence, confocal, multiphoton, and polarized white light.
  • Histopathology equipment including whole slide scanner, laser capture microdissection, flow cytometer, and cell sorters.
  • An intravascular ultrasound imaging system operating at 40 MHz.

Other Equipment

  • Flow Phantom Equipment: Programmable closed-loop microfluidics flow controller (OB1 Base MkIII, Elvesys, France) capable of generating time-varying flow profiles to simulate the cardiac cycle in the phantom studies.
  • 3D Printer