Imaging the retinal and choroidal vasculature using Spatio-Temporal Optical Coherence Tomography (STOC-T)

Abstract

Spatio-Temporal Optical Coherence Tomography (STOC-T) is a novel imaging technique using light with controlled spatial and temporal coherence. Retinal images obtained using the STOC-T system maintain high resolution in all three dimensions, on a sample of about 700 μm, without the need for mechanical scanning. In the present work, we use known data processing algorithms for optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and modify them to improve the rendering of the vasculature in the human retina at different depths by introducing the angio STOC-T method. The algorithms are primarily sensitive to the strong signal phase variance corresponding to the appearance of a wide Doppler band in STOC-T signals obtained for millisecond exposure times. After using STOC-T angiography, we can render high contrast images of the choroid.