Master-slave optical coherence tomography for parallel processing, calibration free and dispersion tolerance operation

We present further improvements on the Master Slave (MS) interferometry method since our first communication [1]. In this paper, we present more data collection and additionally demonstrate an important feature of the MS method, that of tolerance to dispersion. MS interferometry produces the interference of a selected point in depth based on principles of spectral domain (SD) interferometry, but without the need of a Fast Fourier transformation (FFT). The method can be used to directly produce en-face optical coherence tomography (OCT) images but also as a tool to accurately measure distances in low coherence interferometry for sensing applications [1]. In the MS-OCT method, cross-correlation is applied to both methods of SD-OCT, spectrometer based (SP) or swept source (SS) OCT. The channelled spectrum provided by an OCT system is correlated with the signal produced by reading a stored mask. Several such masks can be used simultaneously. The masks operate as adaptive filters. Each mask (filter) determines recognition in the measured channelled spectrum delivered by the interferometer, of the pattern corresponding to each optical path difference to be recognized. The method presents net advantages in comparison with the classical method of producing axial reflectivity profiles by FFT: no need for resampling of data, possibility to tailor the trade-off between depth resolution and sensitivity. Here, using a swept source, the MS method is used to obtain axial reflectivity profiles, which are compared to the axial profiles obtained by calibration of data and FFT. The tolerance to dispersion of the MS method was assumed in [1] but not demonstrated. Here, measurements are performed to demonstrate its axial resolution independence on dispersion.