We are investigating the possibilities and the technical requirements to do nanopatterning on arbitrary curved surfaces. This is done considering the opportunities and possibilities of additive manufacturing. One of the key elements is the necessity to deposit material in well-defined areas of various complex 3D objects. In order to achieve this we are developing a robot-based inkjet printing. We report on our progress with this respect and also on our efforts to perform nanoimprinting on curved, possibly 3D-printed objects using materials that can be deposited by inkjet printing. In the framework of this article, we provide an overview over our current status, the challenges and an outlook.
We present retinal photoreceptor imaging with a line-field parallel spectral domain OCT modality, utilizing a commercially available 2D CMOS detector array operating at and imaging speed of 500 B-scans/s. Our results demonstrate for the first time in vivo structural and functional retinal assessment with a line-field OCT setup providing sufficient sensitivity, lateral and axial resolution and 3D acquisition rates in order to resolve individual photoreceptor cells. The phase stability of the system is manifested by the high phase-correlation across the lateral FOV on the level of individual photoreceptors. The setup comprises a Michelson interferometer illuminated by a broadband light source, where a line-focus is formed via a cylindrical lens and the back-propagated light from sample and reference arm is detected by a 2D array after passing a diffraction grating. The spot size of the line-focus on the retina is 5μm, which corresponds to a PSF of 50μm and an oversampling factor of 3.6 at the detector plane, respectively. A full 3D stack was recorded in only 0.8 s. We show representative enface images, tomograms and phase-difference maps of cone photoreceptors with a lateral FOV close to 2°. The high-speed capability and the phase stability due to parallel illumination and detection may potentially lead to novel structural and functional diagnostic tools on a cellular and microvascular imaging level. Furthermore, the presented system enables competitive imaging results as compared to respective point scanning modalities and facilitates utilizing software based digital aberration correction algorithms for achieving 3D isotropic resolution across the full FOV.
We present retinal photoreceptor imaging with a line-field parallel spectral domain OCT modality, utilizing a commercially available 2D CMOS detector array operating at and imaging speed of 500 B-scans/s. Our results demonstrate for the first time in vivo structural and functional retinal assessment with a line-field OCT setup providing sufficient sensitivity, lateral and axial resolution and 3D acquisition rates in order to resolve individual photoreceptor cells. The setup comprises a Michelson interferometer illuminated by a broadband light source, where a line-focus is formed via a cylindrical lens and the back-propagated light from sample and reference arm is detected by a 2D array after passing a diffraction grating. The spot size of the line-focus on the retina is 5μm, which corresponds to a PSF of 50μm and an oversampling factor of 3.6 at the detector plane, respectively. A full 3D stack was recorded in only 0.8 s. We show representative enface images, tomograms and phase-difference maps of cone photoreceptors with a lateral FOV close to 2°. The high-speed capability and the phase stability due to parallel illumination and detection may potentially lead to novel structural and functional diagnostic tools on a cellular and microvascular imaging level. Furthermore, the presented system enables competitive imaging results as compared to respective point scanning modalities and facilitates utilizing software based digital aberration correction algorithms for achieving 3D isotropic resolution across the full FOV.
MHz OCT allows mitigating undesired influence of motion artifacts during retinal assessment, but comes in state-of-the-art point scanning OCT at the price of increased system complexity. By changing the paradigm from scanning to parallel OCT for in vivo retinal imaging the three-dimensional (3D) acquisition time is reduced without a trade-off between speed, sensitivity and technological requirements. Furthermore, the intrinsic phase stability allows for applying digital refocusing methods increasing the in-focus imaging depth range. Line field parallel interferometric imaging (LPSI) is utilizing a commercially available swept source, a single-axis galvo-scanner and a line scan camera for recording 3D data with up to 1MHz A-scan rate. Besides line-focus illumination and parallel detection, we mitigate the necessity for high-speed sensor and laser technology by holographic full-range imaging, which allows for increasing the imaging speed by low sampling of the optical spectrum. High B-scan rates up to 1kHz further allow for implementation of lable-free optical angiography in 3D by calculating the inter B-scan speckle variance. We achieve a detection sensitivity of 93.5 (96.5) dB at an equivalent A-scan rate of 1 (0.6) MHz and present 3D in vivo retinal structural and functional imaging utilizing digital refocusing. Our results demonstrate for the first time competitive imaging sensitivity, resolution and speed with a parallel OCT modality. LPSI is in fact currently the fastest OCT device applied to retinal imaging and operating at a central wavelength window around 800 nm with a detection sensitivity of higher than 93.5 dB.
OCT is a promising tool for performing fast and cheap noninvasive biopsies. High speed imaging helps to reduce motion artifacts that cause decreased sensitivity and resolution. Using a point scanning configuration one is ultimately limited in sensitivity. Therefore parallel configurations are a potentially attractive solution to further enhance the speed capabilities of future OCT systems. Even more, if full field configurations are employed one can exploit the intrinsic phase correlation over the field of view for digital wavefront correction techniques. Full field OCT has nevertheless limitations concerning the missing confocal gating. The sensitivity is decreased in the presence of specular reflexes from optical interfaces, furthermore light scattering cross talk between pixel causes additional signal degradation. A good compromise between parallel detection capabilities and confocal gating seems therefore line field OCT. We built a bench top line field system employing a frequency swept source enabling 2D/3D imaging at up to 200 kA-scans/s with an axial resolution of 8μm and a depth range of 3.53mm in air. To prevent specular reflexes reaching the line scan camera, an off axis configuration of the optical path together with spatial filters placed in conjugate planes of the system was used. Geometrical optics based digital refocusing through the full depth range was shown on a sample target containing FeO particles, on a biological sample and in vivo. Furthermore, we assessed the regime where line field has an advantage over point scanning OCT in terms of sensitivity.
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