Abstract
Realistic simulation of image formation in optical coherence tomography, based on Maxwell’s equations, has recently been demonstrated for sample volumes of practical significance. Yet, there remains a limitation whereby reducing the size of cells used to construct a computational grid, thus allowing for a more realistic representation of scatterer microstructure, necessarily reduces the overall sample size that can be modelled. This is a significant problem since, as is well known, the microstructure of a scatterer significantly influences its scattering properties. Here we demonstrate that an optimized scatterer design can overcome this problem resulting in good agreement between simulated and experimental images for a structured phantom. This approach to OCT image simulation allows for image formation for biological tissues to be simulated with unprecedented realism.
Highlights
Full wave modelling of image formation in optical coherence tomography (OCT) has recently become feasible due to advances in both algorithms and computer hardware
This study revealed that the design of scatterer microstructure significantly impacts upon OCT image formation [17]
A Thorlabs Telesto-II spectral domain OCT system with an LSM03 objective was used to obtain the experimental images presented in this paper
Summary
Full wave modelling of image formation in optical coherence tomography (OCT) has recently become feasible due to advances in both algorithms and computer hardware. A more realistic scatterer design was found that resulted in the same scattering cross-section as the sphere, the angular distribution of light scattered for an incident plane still varied significantly between the two cases This poor representation of scatterer microstructure led to significant divergence between simulated and experimental results. Motivated by this recent work, we have developed a method for designing discrete scatterers which accurately represent the three-dimensional light scattering properties of the physical scatterers to be modelled, not the scattering cross-section. We achieve this across the spectrum of the OCT system, not just at the central wavelength. We perform quantitative comparisons between simulated and experimentally acquired images
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