Imaging vibrating vocal folds with a high speed 1050 nm swept source OCT and ODT

Vocal fold vibration is vital in voice production and the correct pitch of speech. We have developed a high speed functional optical coherence tomography (OCT) system with a center wavelength of 1050 nm and an imaging speed of 100,000 A-lines per second. We imaged the vibration of an ex-vivo swine vocal fold. At an imaging speed of 100 frames per second, we demonstrated high quality vocal fold images during vibration. Functional information, such as vibration frequency and vibration amplitude, was obtained by analyzing the tissue surface during vibration. The axial direction velocity distribution in the cross-sectional images of the vibrating vocal folds was obtained with the Doppler OCT. The quantitative transverse direction velocity distribution in the cross-sectional images was obtained with the Doppler variance images. (C) 2011 Optical Society of Americ