The University of Lübeck is a young, vibrant university in the north of Germany with most research efforts and education focussed on life science. As one of the largest european centre of university medicine, the university hospital in the state Schleswig Holstein (UKSH) is closely linked to the University of Lübeck and located on campus. The University of Lübeck provides an ideal campus environment since experts and researchers from all fields of medicine are in close proximity.
With three leading spin off companies (4 Optics – now Heidelberg Engineering, Thorlabs LübeckHL now Thorlabs GmbH, OPMedT OptoMedical Technologies GmbH now Haag Streit) and several academic research groups working on OCT, Lübeck is one of Europes prime locations for optical coherence tomography technology and applications.
The Institute of Biomedical Optics at the University of Lübeck has a long track record in successfully applying optical technologies to medical problems and transferring new technology to clinical applications and to products. Robert Huber’s group focuses on new optical technologies and light source developments for sensing and imaging in biomedical applications. The group demonstrated the first multi-megahertz OCT imaging engines for various applications and subsequently translated them to the clinic.
Prof. Robert Huber developed a new laser concept, the FDML laser. By storing the light field in a extra long cavity, very rapid wavelength swept sources were possible. This technique is very advantageous in optical coherence tomography (OCT) as it makes very fast imaging feasible. His group focuses on the development of fast FDML lasers and their implementation in ultra fast OCT, as well as the development of new applications, like non-linear Raman imaging.
Research topics:
- FDML laser physics
- ultra-fast optical coherence tomography (OCT)
- stimulated Raman spectroscopy and non-linear microscopy
Key Research Facilities, Infrastructure and Equipment
240m² of lab space and office space. Equipment to develop, build and test the lasers and light sources of interest in this project. 5 optical spectrum analyzers, 1 RF spectrum analyser, 3 arc fusion fibre splicers, 63GHz real time oscilloscope, a 1300nm 3MHz line rate OCT, a 3 MHz 1050 nm retinal OCT (both home built), microscopes and other diagnosis equipment.
Publications
- ‘Amplified, frequency swept lasers for frequency domain reflectometry and OCT imaging: design and scaling principles’, HUBER, R., WOJTKOWSKI, M., TAIRA, K., FUJIMOTO, J. G. & HSU, K. . Optics Express, 13, 3513-3528, 2005, https://doi.org/10.1364/OPEX.13.003513
- ‘Fourier Domain Mode Locking (FDML): A new laser operating regime and applications for optical coherence tomography‘, HUBER, R., WOJTKOWSKI, M. & FUJIMOTO, J. G. . Optics Express, 14, 3225-3237, 2006, https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.14.003225
- ‘High definition live 3D-OCT in vivo: design and evaluation of a 4D OCT engine with 1 GVoxel/s.’, WIESER, W., DRAXINGER, W., KLEIN, T., KARPF, S., PFEIFFER, T. & HUBER, R., Biomedical Optics Express, 5, 2963-2977, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.5.002963