Shot-noise limited, supercontinuum-based optical coherence tomography.

We present the first demonstration of shot-noise limited supercontinuum-based spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) with an axial resolution of 5.9 μm at a center wavelength of 1370 nm. Current supercontinuum-based SD-OCT systems cannot be operated in the shot-noise limited detection regime because of severe pulse-to-pulse relative intensity noise of the supercontinuum source.