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Photonic integrated circuits (PIC) provide promising functionalities to significantly reduce the size and costs of optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems. This paper presents an imaging platform operating at a center wavelength of 830 nm for ophthalmic application using PIC-based swept source OCT. An on-chip Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) configuration, which comprises an input power splitter, polarization beam splitters in the sample and the reference arm, and a 50/50 coupler for signal interference represents the core element of the system with a footprint of only [Formula: see text]. The system achieves 94 dB imaging sensitivity with 750 [Formula: see text]W on the sample, 50 kHz imaging speed and 5.5 [Formula: see text]m axial resolution (in soft tissue). With this setup, in vivo human retinal imaging of healthy subjects was performed producing B-scans, three-dimensional renderings as well as OCT angiography. These promising results are significant prerequisites for further integration of optical and electronic building blocks on a single swept source-OCT PIC., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

We analyze the influence of intrinsic polarization alignment on image quality and axial resolution employing a broadband 840 nm light source with an optical bandwidth of 160 nm and an output power of 12 mW tailored for spectral-domain optical coherence microscopy (SD-OCM) applications. Three superluminescent diodes (SLEDs) are integrated into a 14-pin butterfly module using a free-space micro-optical bench architecture, maintaining a constant polarization state across the full spectral output. We demonstrate superior imaging performance in comparison to traditionally coupled-SLED broadband light sources in a teleost model organism in-vivo ., Competing Interests: Marcus Duelk (FEP), Stefan Gloor (FEP), Jean Dahdah (FEP), José Ojeda (FEP) are collaborators of EXALOS AG. EXALOS provided light sources for testing to the Medical University of Vienna. The authors declare no other conflicts of interest., (© 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.)