Cancellation of coherent artifacts in optical coherence tomography imaging.

Coherent artifacts in optical coherence tomography (OCT) images can severely degrade image quality by introducing false targets if no targets are present at the artifact locations. Coherent artifacts can also add constructively or destructively to the targets that are present at the artifact locations. This constructive or destructive interference will result in cancellation of the true targets or in display of incorrect echo amplitudes of the targets. We introduce the use of a nonlinear deconvolution algorithm, CLEAN, to cancel coherent artifacts in OCT images of extracted human teeth. The results show that CLEAN can reduce the coherent artifacts to the noise background, sharpen the air-enamel and enamel-dentin interfaces, and improve the image contrast.

[1]  J. Högbom,et al.  APERTURE SYNTHESIS WITH A NON-REGULAR DISTRIBUTION OF INTERFEROMETER BASELINES. Commentary , 1974 .

[2]  M. V. van Gemert,et al.  Noninvasive imaging of in vivo blood flow velocity using optical Doppler tomography. , 1997, Optics letters.

[3]  J. Izatt,et al.  Velocity-estimation accuracy and frame-rate limitations in color Doppler optical coherence tomography. , 1998, Optics letters.

[4]  J M Schmitt,et al.  Restoration of Optical Coherence Images of Living Tissue Using the CLEAN Algorithm. , 1998, Journal of biomedical optics.

[5]  D. Davies,et al.  Optical coherence-domain reflectometry: a new optical evaluation technique. , 1987, Optics letters.

[6]  J. Fujimoto,et al.  Investigation of developing embryonic morphology using optical coherence tomography. , 1996, Developmental biology.

[7]  Siavash Yazdanfar,et al.  Velocity estimation accuracy in color doppler optical coherence tomography , 1998 .

[8]  J. Fujimoto,et al.  High-speed optical coherence domain reflectometry. , 1992, Optics letters.

[9]  J. Fujimoto,et al.  In vivo endoscopic optical biopsy with optical coherence tomography. , 1997, Science.

[10]  B. D. Steinberg,et al.  Reduction of sidelobe and speckle artifacts in microwave imaging: the CLEAN technique , 1988 .

[11]  Qing Zhu,et al.  Correction of multipath interference using CLEAN and spatial location diversity , 1995, 1995 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium. Proceedings. An International Symposium.

[12]  G. Yao,et al.  Two-dimensional depth-resolved Mueller matrix characterization of biological tissue by optical coherence tomography. , 1999, Optics letters.

[13]  J. Nelson,et al.  Characterization of dentin and enamel by use of optical coherence tomography. , 1999, Applied optics.

[14]  L L Otis,et al.  Imaging of hard- and soft-tissue structure in the oral cavity by optical coherence tomography. , 1998, Applied optics.