Measurement of the anterior structures of the human eye by partial coherence interferometry

In the past few years a new technique for measuring intraocular distances has been developed, which is based on interferometry using partially coherent light beams and the Doppler principle. It has been shown that this technique is capable of measuring corneal thickness, axial eye length, and retinal thickness in human eyes in vivo with unprecedented precision. This technique has now been further extended to measure the anterior chamber depth and the thickness of the lens. A precision of 10 micrometers is obtained for both intraocular distances. This is more than one order of magnitude better than with conventional techniques.