Open AccessSpeckle-resolved optical coherence tomography for mesoscopic imaging within scattering media
Author(s) -
Michelle Cua,
Baptiste Blochet,
Changhuei Yang
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
biomedical optics express
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.362
H-Index - 86
ISSN - 2156-7085
DOI - 10.1364/boe.448969
Subject(s) - speckle pattern , optical coherence tomography , optics , scattering , light scattering , physics , mesoscopic physics , photon , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , imaging phantom , optical tomography , interferometry , speckle imaging , ghost imaging , quantum mechanics
Light scattering poses a challenge for imaging deep in scattering media as the ballistic light exponentially attenuates with depth. In contrast to the ballistic light, the multiply scattered light penetrates deeper and also contains information about the sample. One technique to image deeper is to selectively detect only a subset of the multiply scattered light, namely the 'snake' photons, which are predominantly forward scattered and retain more direct information than the more strongly scattered light. In this work, we develop a technique, termed speckle-resolved optical coherence tomography (srOCT), for efficiently detecting these 'snake' photons to enable imaging deeper in scattering media. The system couples spatio-angular filtering with speckle-resolved interferometric detection to preferentially and efficiently detect the weakly scattered 'snake' photons. With our proof-of-concept system, we demonstrate depth-resolved imaging beyond the ballistic limit, up to a depth of 90 round-trip MFPs in a scattering phantom and a depth of 4.5 mm of chicken tissue at 0.4 mm axial and lateral resolution.