LAUSR

Abstract Spectrally encoded imaging (SEI), providing valuable structural information of the specimen, is an indispensable tool to study on diverse phenomenon in scientific and technological applications. In this method, a broadband light beam was incident on a diffraction grating, and then focused on an illuminating sample to collect multiple spatial point data. A major challenge in SEI is implementation of dispersing the incident light to multiple wavelengths and efficiently converging them into a small-diameter receiver, also referred as wavelength-to-space mapping. Here, we propose and demonstrate a compact and high-performance SEI system combining with 4f configuration in 1.5  μ m band, which immensely improves the collection efficiency of wavelength-to-space mapping procedure. Proof-of-concept experiment with a high spatial resolution SEI scheme is successfully performed, and the overall collection efficiency of wavelength-to-space mapping increases to 70% through 4f system.