Full-field optical coherence tomography for rapid 3-D imaging in biological systems

Abstract

Full-field optical coherence tomography (FF-OCT) is an emerging non-invasive, label-free, interferometric technique for 3D imaging of biomedical objects with micron-scale resolutions. The conventional phase-shifting technique in FF-OCT involves in mechanically moving a mirror to change the optical path difference for obtaining en face OCT images, but with the use of a broadband source in FF-OCT, the phase shifts of different spectral components are not the same, resulting in the ambiguities in 3-D image reconstruction. In this study, we propose to utilize the ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) device-controlled geometric phase shifting technique to realize achromatic phase shifting for rapid 3-D imaging. We demonstrate this FLC-controlled FF-OCT technique by imaging biological samples (e.g., onion tissue). © 2011 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).