A resolution insensitive to geometrical aberrations by using incoherent illumination and interference imaging

Abstract

This contribution is another opportunity to acknowledge the influence of Roger Maynard on our research work when he pushed one of us (ACB) to explore the field of waves propagating in complex media rather than limiting ourselves to the wavelength scale of thermal waves or near field phenomena. Optical tomography is used for imaging in-depth scattering media such as biological tissues. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) plays an important role in imaging biological samples. Coupling OCT with adaptive optics (AO) in order to correct eye aberrations has led to cellular imaging of the retina. By using our approach called Full-Field OCT (FFOCT) we show that, with spatially incoherent illumination, the width of the point-spread function (PSF) that governs the resolution is not affected by aberrations that induce only a reduction of the signal level. We will describe our approach by starting with the PSF experimental data followed by a simple theoretical analysis, and numerical calculations. Finally full images obtained through or inside scattering and aberrating media will be shown.