Swept source optical coherence tomography of objects with arbitrary reflectivity profiles

Abstract

Swept Source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) has become a well established imaging modality for both medical and industrial diagnostic applications. A cross-sectional SS-OCT image is obtained by applying an inverse discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to axial interferogram measured in the frequency domain (k-space). Fourier inversion of the obtained interferogram typically produces a potentially overlapping conjugate mirror image, whose overlap could be avoided by restricting the object to have its highest reflectivity at its surface. However, this restriction may not be fulfilled when imaging a very thin object that is placed on a highly reflective surface, or imaging an object containing a contrast agent with high reflectivity. In this paper, we show that oversampling of the SS-OCT signal in k-space would overcome the need for such restriction on the object. Our result is demonstrated using SS-OCT images of Axolotl salamander eggs.