School Juridical Person Kitasato Institute

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Kohji Ohbayashi

Kimiya Shimizu

Hiroyuki Furukawa

Takeo Miyazawa

Ryoko Yoshimura

Fumiyoshi Kano

Hideaki Hiro-Oka

DongHak Choi

Takuji Amano

Motoi Nakanishi

An optical coherence tomography apparatus constructs a tomographic image of a measurement object on the basis of a spectral characteristic obtained by spectrally dividing interference light, which combines signal light composed of the measurement light reflected by the measurement object and reference light, using an optical demultiplexer.

Optical coherence tomography apparatus

An OCT technique that permits tomographic observation of biological body parts that are difficult to restrain, and also provides a tomographic observation technique for the observation of a constrainable part that does not require constraint and thus removes a burden on the biological body. A wavelength-tunable light generator (wavelength-tunable light source) is employed as the light source of the optical coherence tomography device. The wavelength-tunable light generator has a wave number tunable range width of at least 4.7&#xd7;10&#x3bc;mand an emitted-light frequency width of no more than 13 GHz, for example, and is capable of changing the wave number stepwise at wave number intervals of no more than 3.1&#xd7;10&#x3bc;mand time intervals of no more than 530 &#x3bc;s.

Wavelength-tunable light generator and optical coherence tomography device

The present invention provides an OCT technique that permits tomographic observation of a biological body parts that is difficult to restrain and also provides a tomographic observation technique for the observation of a constrainable part that does not require constraint and remove the burden from biological body. A wavelength-tunable light generator (wavelength-tunable light source) is employed as the light source of the optical coherence tomography device. The wavelength-tunable light generator has a wave number tunable range width of at least 4.7&#xd7;10&#x3bc;mand an emitted-light frequency width of no more than 13 GHz, for example, and includes means capable of changing the wave number stepwise at wave number intervals of no more than 3.1&#xd7;10&#x3bc;mand time intervals of no more than 530 &#x3bc;s.

Growing community of inventors

Chiba, Japan

Kohji Ohbayashi