Signal processing in optical coherence tomography (OCT)

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive, non-contact technique of optical sectioning of partially transparent objects with micron axial resolution. This relatively new method for depth-resolved non-invasive imaging of weakly scattering objects originates from medicine and has been successfully used as a diagnostic tool in ophthalmology for about a decade. Over this time a significant progress has been made in achieved resolution, sensitivity, data collection speed and post-processing algorithms. As using near-infrared light to unravel internal structure of examined objects, this technique permits localization of all discontinuities and other rapid changes of refractive index within the medium. The result of examination is usually presented in a convenient and easy to analyze manner of cross-sectional view. By serially collecting many such images, volume information may be extracted.