Optical coherence tomography methods using 2-D detector arrays

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive, non-contact optical technique that allows cross-section imaging of biological tissues with high spatial resolution, high sensitivity and high dynamic range. Standard OCT uses a focused beam to illuminate a point on the target and detects the signal using a single photodetector. To acquire transverse information, transversal scanning of the illumination point is required. Alternatively, multiple OCT channels can be operated in parallel simultaneously; parallel OCT signals are recorded by a two-dimensional (2D) detector array. This approach is known as Parallel-detection OCT. In this thesis, methods, experiments and results using three parallel OCT techniques, including full -field (time-domain) OCT (FF-OCT), full-field swept-source OCT (FF-SS-OCT) and line-field Fourier-domain OCT (LF-FD-OCT), are presented. Several 2D digital cameras of different formats have been used and evaluated in the experiments of different methods. With the LF-FD-OCT method, photography equipment, such as flashtubes and commercial DSLR cameras have been equipped and tested for OCT imaging. The techniques used in FF-OCT and FF-SS-OCT are employed in a novel wavefront sensing technique, which combines OCT methods with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (SH-WFS). This combination technique is demonstrated capable of measuring depth-resolved wavefront aberrations, which has the potential to extend the applications of SH-WFS in wavefront-guided biomedical imaging techniques.