Open AccessLow-cost hand-held probe for depth-resolved low-coherence interferometry
Author(s) -
Paritosh Pande,
Ryan L. Shelton,
Guillermo L. Monroy,
Ryan M. Nolan,
Stephen A. Boppart
Publication year - 2016
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.8.000338
Subject(s) - optical coherence tomography , interferometry , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , optics , computer science , fourier domain , fourier transform , medical imaging , time domain , frequency domain , physics , artificial intelligence , computer vision , quantum mechanics
We report on the development of a low-cost hand-held low-coherence interferometric imaging system based on the principle of linear optical coherence tomography (Linear OCT), a technique which was first proposed in the early 2000s as a simpler alternative to the conventional time-domain and Fourier-domain OCT. A bench-top implementation of the proposed technique is first presented and validated. The axial resolution, SNR, and sensitivity roll-of of the system was estimated to be 5.2 μ m and 80 dB, and 3.7 dB over a depth of 0.15 mm, respectively. After validating the bench-top system, two hand-held probe implementations for contact-based imaging and in vivo human tympanic membrane imaging are presented. The performance of the proposed system was compared with a research-grade state-of-the-art Fourier-domain low coherence interferometry (LCI) system by imaging several biological and non-biological samples. The results of this study suggest that the proposed system might be a suitable choice for applications where imaging depth and SNR can be traded for lower cost and simpler optical design.