Resolution improved optical coherence-gated tomography for imaging through biological tissues

Abstract

A mathematical model for the process of optical coherence-gated tomography (OCT) is described for the first time. It shows that the recorded signal of OCT is the cross-correlation of the self-coherence function of the light source with the impulse response of biological tissue to be measured. A deconvolution technique is then introduced to improve the longitudinal resolution of the system by recording the self-coherence function of the light source before the actual measurement is made. The technique could improve the resolution by a factor of 2–3, but with a penalty of a reduced signal-to-noise ratio; however, this penalty could be compromised by a spectral filtering technique. A proof-of-concept experiment is presented.