Group Members : Robert Huber (Group leader) Rainer Leonhardt (visiting professor) Christoph Eigenwillig (Postdoc) Wolfgang Wieser (PHD student) Thomas Klein (PHD student) Sebastian Karpf (PHD student) Tom Pfeiffer (PHD student) Matthias Eibl (PHD student) Jan Philip Kolb (PHD student) Corinna Kufner (master student) Markus Petermann (master student) Philipp Schwarz (master student) Björn Mates (bachelor student) Andreas Grenz (bachelor student) Korbinian Schreiber (student trainee)

Former Members : List of former members

News/press reports :

"Megahertz OCT" publication among 20 most-cited articles published in Optics Express over the past two years The publication "Megahertz OCT for ultrawide-field retinal imaging with a 1050nm Fourier domain mode-locked laser" (Thomas Klein et al.) rank among the 20 most-cited articles in Optics Express over the past two years. "Young elite: 4 x 40 under 40" - Dr. Robert Huber as top talent in the "Capital" ranking of the year 2012 Within the project "Young elite: 4 x 40 under 40" the business magazine "Capital" yearly nominates the most successful german top talents in the fields of politics, economics, science as well as state & government. After 2011, Dr. Robert Huber again has been selected as one of the fourty young top talents in the field of science. More news/press reports

OCT Image Gallery:

Collaboration and Funding :

Participation in EU project FUN-OCT - Funding by 7th EU Framework Programme

The EU project FUN-OCT that focuses on the research and development of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) aims to provide a platform for functional biomedical imaging. Our group is one of seven participating partners from science and industry. Our task is the research and implementation of FDML laser sources, that will be used for clinical systems within the FUN-OCT consortium. (further information)

Closer collaboration with partners: Medical University Vienna (Center for Biomedical Engineering and Physics) Groups of Christoph Hitzenberger, Rainer Leitgeb, Wolfgang Drexler Technical University of Denmark (Department of Photonics Engineering) Group of Peter Andersen Institute of Biomedical Optics (Universität zu Lübeck) Group of Gereon Hüttmann FEMTOLASERS Produktions GmbH (Vienna)

Participation in the programme OCT-Labs funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)

The aim of the DFG project "OCT Labs" is the development of a controlled, ablating laser system for defined and complete removal of bone without damaging adjacent soft-tissue structures. This should be accomplished with a simultaneous detection of the boundary layer using optical coherence tomography(OCT). The contribution of our group will be the development of a suitable, transportable OCT system. (further information)

Collaboration with partners: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology(KIT), Universität Karlsruhe (Institute for Process Control and Robotics) Prof.Dr.Heinz Wörn, Dr.Jörg Raczkowsky University-ENT-Clinic Düsseldorf (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf) Prof.Dr.med. Jörg Schipper, PD Dr.med Thomas Klenzner

Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC)

The project "Stimulated Raman analysis and Raman microscopy with Fourier Domain Mode Locked (FDML) laser sources (project number:259158)" funded by the European Union within the ERC starting grant programme aims to evaluate the application of FDML lasers for stimulated Raman detection.

Collaboration with the eye clinic of Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München

Cooperation on the field of ultrafast and ultrawide-field optical coherence tomography (OCT) of the retina with the eye clinic of Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München

Collaboration with TU München

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying theoretical framework of Fourier Domain mode-locked lasers (FDML) we are in close collaboration with Dr. Christian Jirauschek (Technische Universität München) whose group is working on simulations on laser dynamics of FDML lasers.

Research Topics :

Fourier Domain Mode Locking (FDML): Spectral Mode Locking in Optics and Applications Continuous wave (cw) operation and conventional mode locking are the two main stationary operation regimes of lasers. In an ideal, stationary cw-operation the laser emits a harmonic lightwave with constant power level and one optical frequency. The resulting spectrum is extremely narrow, the emission is monochromatic. In the conventional mode locking regime a laser emits a train of temporally short pulses where the peak intensity of the light field exceeds the average intensity by far. Many longitudinal cavity modes in the laser are simultaneously active, the resulting spectrum is broad, and the emission frequency characteristic is polychromatic. In addition to these two stationary operation modes, Fourier Domain Mode Locking (FDML) represents a third regime enabling a spectrally broad output while maintaining low variations in average power. The optical output consists of a series of fast, narrowband optical frequency sweeps equivalent to extremely chirped pulses. The laser cavity modes are locked with a unique phase relation by a narrowband optical band pass filter driven synchronously to the cavity roundtrip time. FDML can provide superior performance in various applications where high-speed, narrowband frequency-swept lasers are desired. More...

Optical Coherent Ranging and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT): Imaging and profilometry with rapidly frequency swept laser sources Optical ranging techniques are applied throughout all fields of modern metrology, process control and imaging applications. Compared to other ranging techniques, like ultrasound or radar, the shorter wavelength of light offers certain benefits with respect to accuracy, resolution and beam delivery. For biomedical applications the so called optical coherence tomography (OCT) combines the high transverse spatial resolution of standard optical imaging systems with an axial depth resolution on the order of a few microns. The actual ranging in OCT can be performed with broadband light sources or with narrowband tunable lasers. The latter seems promising to outperform the other systems if tunable laser sources with sufficient specifications can be developed. More...

Publications :

"Joint aperture detection for speckle reduction and increased collection efficiency in ophthalmic MHz OCT" Thomas Klein, Raphael André, Wolfgang Wieser, Tom Pfeiffer, and Robert Huber Biomedical Optics Express, Vol. 4, Issue 4, pp. 619-634 (2013) Details "Retinal polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography at 1060 nm with 350 kHz A-scan rate using an Fourier domain mode locked laser " Teresa Torzicky, Sebastian Marschall, Michael Pircher, Bernhard Baumann, Marco Bonesi, Stefan Zotter, Erich Götzinger, Wolfgang Trasischker, Thomas Klein, Wolfgang Wieser, Benjamin Biedermann, Robert Huber, Peter Andersen, Christoph K. Hitzenberger Journal of Biomedical Optics 18(2), 026008 (2013) Details "Intrasweep phase-sensitive optical coherence tomography for noncontact optical photoacoustic imaging" Cedric Blatter, Branislav Grajciar, Pu Zou, Wolfgang Wieser, Aart-Jan Verhoef, Robert Huber, and Rainer A. Leitgeb Optics Letters, Vol. 37, Issue 21, pp. 4368-4370 (2012) Details "High-speed polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography scan engine based on Fourier domain mode locked laser" Marco Bonesi, Harald Sattmann, Teresa Torzicky, Stefan Zotter, Bernhard Baumann, Michael Pircher, Erich Götzinger, Christoph Eigenwillig, Wolfgang Wieser, Robert Huber, and Christoph K. Hitzenberger Biomedical Optics Express, Vol. 3, Issue 11, pp. 2987-3000 (2012) Details "Intrasweep phase-sensitive optical coherence tomography for noncontact optical photoacoustic imaging" Cedric Blatter, Branislav Grajciar, Pu Zou, Wolfgang Wieser, Aart-Jan Verhoef, Robert Huber, and Rainer A. Leitgeb Optics Letters, Vol. 37, Issue 21, pp. 4368-4370 (2012) Details "High-speed polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography scan engine based on Fourier domain mode locked laser" Marco Bonesi, Harald Sattmann, Teresa Torzicky, Stefan Zotter, Bernhard Baumann, Michael Pircher, Erich Götzinger, Christoph Eigenwillig, Wolfgang Wieser, Robert Huber, and Christoph K. Hitzenberger Biomedical Optics Express, Vol. 3, Issue 11, pp. 2987-3000 (2012) Details "In situ structural and microangiographic assessment of human skin lesions with high-speed OCT" Cedric Blatter, Jessika Weingast, Aneesh Alex, Branislav Grajciar, Wolfgang Wieser, Wolfgang Drexler, Robert Huber, and Rainer A. Leitgeb Biomedical Optics Express, Vol. 3, Issue 10, pp. 2636-2646 (2012) Details "Extended coherence length megahertz FDML and its application for anterior segment imaging" Wolfgang Wieser, Thomas Klein, Desmond C. Adler, Francois Trépanier, Christoph M. Eigenwillig, Sebastian Karpf, Joseph M. Schmitt, and Robert Huber Biomedical Optics Express, Vol 3, Issue 10, pp. 2647-2657 (2012) Details "Ultrahigh-speed non-invasive widefield angiography" Cedric Blatter, Thomas Klein, Branislav Grajciar, Tilman Schmoll, Wolfgang Wieser, Raphael Andre, Robert Huber, Rainer A. Leitgeb J. Biomed. Opt. 17, 070505 (2012) Details "High-speed polarization-sensitive OCT at 1060nm using a Fourier domain mode-locked swept source" Sebastian Marschall, Teresa Torzicky,Thomas Klein, Wolfgang Wieser, Michael Pircher, Erich Gotzinger, Stefan Zotter, Marco Bonesi, Benjamin Biedermann, Christian Pedersen, Robert Huber, Christoph Hitzenberger, Peter Andersen Proc. SPIE vol. 8427, p. 84271D (2012) Details All 71 publications