PROCEEDINGS ARTICLE | February 16, 2011
Proc. SPIE. 7889, Optical Coherence Tomography and Coherence Domain Optical Methods in Biomedicine XV
KEYWORDS: Coherence imaging, Digital signal processing, Optical signal processing, Coherence (optics), Surgery, Imaging systems, Optical coherence tomography, Image processing, Image restoration, Signal processing
Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging is a high-resolution, sub-surface non-invasive imaging technique,
using the principle of low coherence interferometry, that has become increasingly popular for various applications for
structural and quantitative imaging [1]. Applications for OCT technology have been demonstrated in ophthalmology,
dentistry, cardiology/intravascular imaging, endoscopy and intra-operative surgery, and many new applications are being
researched.
Due to higher sensitivity and faster rate of image acquisition, frequency domain OCT systems are now replacing the
first generation time domain systems. These include spectral domain systems, which use a broadband low coherent
source with spectrometer and a line scan camera based receive system, and swept source systems, that use wavelength
sweeping source with a photo-detector based receive system. Both of these systems require very similar signal
processing to recover the desired image from the captured digitized interference or fringe data.
