Former Members : List of former members

News/press reports :

The AG Huber has moved to Uni Lübeck. The Huber group is now at the Institute of Biomedical Optics at the University of Lübeck. For latest updates please visit our webpage at the BMO Lübeck. Spotlight on optics (Optical Society of America) The publication "High definition live 3D-OCT in vivo: design and evaluation of a 4D OCT engine with 1 GVoxel/s" by Wolfgang Wieser from the group of Prof. Robert Huber was highlighted as Spotlight article by the Optical Society of America (OSA). Every month the OSA selects 6 outstanding publications from all OSA journals which show the breadth and quality of latest optical research. In the spotlight article, a system is presented which combines fastest FDML lasers and massively parallel data analysis on modern, consumer-grade GPUs to enable the acquisition of volumetric OCT data in video-rate, processing the data in real time, and rendering in 3D for displaying (Video). Up to now, volumetric OCT imaging was mainly used for medical diagnostic purposes, where the information was studied after data acquisition. This work now enables interactive use of 3D-OCT for applications like e.g. surgical microscopes. MHz FDML lasers are now available from our spin-off company Optores Optores GmbH recently announced the availability of the first commercially available swept lasers with MHz line rates. The 1310nm FDML laser runs at speeds of up to 1.5MHz. More information can be found on Optores' homepage. 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 :

"High definition live 3D-OCT in vivo: design and evaluation of a 4D OCT engine with 1 GVoxel/s" Wolfgang Wieser, Wolfgang Draxinger, Thomas Klein, Sebastian Karpf, Tom Pfeiffer, and Robert Huber Biomedical Optics Express, Vol. 5, Issue 9, pp. 2963-2977 (2014) Details "Megahertz ultra-wide-field swept-source retina optical coherence tomography compared to current existing imaging devices" Lukas Reznicek, Thomas Klein, Wolfgang Wieser, Marcus Kernt, Armin Wolf, Christos Haritoglou, Anselm Kampik, Robert Huber, Aljoscha S. Neubauer Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, Volume 252, Issue 6, pp 1009-1016 (2014) Details "Multi-MHz retinal OCT" Thomas Klein, Wolfgang Wieser, Lukas Reznicek, Aljoscha Neubauer, Anselm Kampik, and Robert Huber Biomedical Optics Express, Vol. 4, Issue 10, pp. 1890-1908 (2013) Details "Picosecond pulses from wavelength-swept continuous-wave Fourier domain mode-locked lasers" Christoph M. Eigenwillig, Wolfgang Wieser, Sebastian Todor, Benjamin R. Biedermann, Thomas Klein, Christian Jirauschek, Robert Huber Nature Communications 4: 1848 doi:10.1038/ncomms2870 (2013) Details "Intravascular optical coherence tomography imaging at 3200 frames per second" Tianshi Wang, Wolfgang Wieser, Geert Springeling, Robert Beurskens, Charles T. Lancee, Tom Pfeiffer, Antonius F. W. van der Steen, Robert Huber, and Gijs van Soest Optics Letters, Vol. 38, Issue 10, pp. 1715-1717 (2013) Details "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 "History compounding: a novel speckle reduction technique for OCT guided cochleostomy" Yaokun Zhang, Tom Pfeiffer, Wolfgang Wieser, Marcel Weller, Robert Huber, Thomas Klenzner, Jörg Raczkowsky, Heinz Wörn Proc. SPIE, Vol. 8571 (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 All 77 publications