Abstract
We present a full-range Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) system that is capable of acquiring two-dimensional images of living tissue in a single shot. By using line illumination of the sample in combination with a two-dimensional imaging spectrometer, 1040 depth scans are performed simultaneously on a sub-millisecond timescale. Furthermore, we demonstrate an easy and flexible real-time single-shot technique for full-range (complex-conjugate cancelled) OCT imaging that is compatible with both two-dimensional as well as ultrahigh-resolution OCT. By implementing a dispersion imbalance between reference and sample arms of the interferometer, we eliminate the complex-conjugate signal through numerical dispersion compensation, effectively increasing the useful depth range by a factor of two. The system allows us to record 6.7 x 3.2 mm images at 5 microm depth resolution in 0.2 ms. Data postprocessing requires only 4 s. We demonstrate the capability of our system by imaging the anterior chamber of a mouse eye in vitro, as well as human skin in vivo.
Highlights
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a powerful tool for noninvasive imaging of tissue [1], with a resolution that is superior to medical imaging tools such as magnetic resonance imaging or ultrasound
The development of Fourier-domain OCT (FD-OCT) provided a breakthrough in this respect, as it enables the measurement of a depth scan (A-scan) in a single shot [7]
By using a standard numerical dispersion compensation routine in the limit of large dispersion, any FD-OCT system can be transformed into a real-time full-range OCT system with over 40 dB complex conjugate suppression
Summary
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a powerful tool for noninvasive imaging of tissue [1], with a resolution that is superior to medical imaging tools such as magnetic resonance imaging or ultrasound. An OCT system that is capable of removing this mirror image artifact would gain both in depth range [14] and in detection sensitivity [9] Such ’full-range’ OCT has been demonstrated using various techniques that require the recording of multiple phase-coherent A-scans for each transverse position [14, 15, 16, 17], or alternatively employ a phase-shifting mechanism to obtain complex-conjugate-resolved data [18, 19]. We exploit a dispersion imbalance between the reference and sample arms of our OCT interferometer to distinguish between the real signal and the mirror image artifact, and use standard numerical dispersion compensation techniques combined with a peak-finding algorithm to suppress the mirror image artifact by more than 40 dB Another approach to full-range OCT based on dispersion-encoding has recently been demonstrated by Hofer et al [20]. As our method does not become more critical when the spectral bandwidth increases, it can be directly implemented on ultrahigh-resolution OCT systems by adding dispersive material in the reference arm
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