Optical Coherence Tomography

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technique that uses low-coherence interferometry to construct 3D images with micrometer-scale resolution. It is the imaging modality used in optical coherence elastography (OCE) to measure sample deformation; as such, a detailed analysis of OCT is required to gain a clear understanding of OCE. This chapter provides an overview of the physical principles of OCT, including wave optics, coherence, and interferometry. This theory is then used to describe the main variants of OCT: time-domain OCT and Fourier-domain OCT; the latter of which can be further subdivided into swept-source OCT and spectral-domain OCT. The relationship between system parameters (such as resolution, field of view, and signal-to-noise ratio), and the specification of OCT system components (such as the light source, objectives lens, and scanning mirrors) is also discussed. The chapter concludes with a brief description of OCT variants, including optical coherence microscopy, full-field OCT, and line-field OCT.