20130016360 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPROVED RESOLUTION, HIGHER SCAN SPEEDS AND REDUCED PROCESSING TIME IN SCANS INVOLVING SWEPT-WAVELENGTH INTERFEROMETRYAANM Ensher; JasonAACI BroomfieldAAST COAACO USAAGP Ensher; Jason Broomfield CO USAANM Minneman; MichaelAACI BroomfieldAAST COAACO USAAGP Minneman; Michael Broomfield CO USAANM Crawford; MichaelAACI BroomfieldAAST COAACO USAAGP Crawford; Michael Broomfield CO US - A system and method for measuring an interferometric signal from a swept-wavelength interferometer by scanning a tunable laser source over two wavelength ranges, whose centers are separated substantially more than the length of wavelength ranges. The spatial resolution of the measurement is determined by the inverse of the wavelength separation between a first and second wavelength region, as well as by the wavelength range of the first and second regions. An electronically tunable laser may be utilized to produce two wavelength ranges that are widely separated in wavelength. Such a system and method has wide applications to the fields of optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) and swept-wavelength optical coherence tomography (OCT), for example. | 01-17-2013 |