Optical coherence tomography - principles and applications

TLDR

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is one of three major optical tomography techniques, valued in medicine for its safe, non‑invasive, high‑resolution imaging of scattering tissues and its expanding range of clinical applications. This report reviews OCT principles and highlights key clinical applications.

Abstract

There have been three basic approaches to optical tomography since the early 1980s: diffraction tomography, diffuse optical tomography and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Optical techniques are of particular importance in the medical field, because these techniques promise to be safe and cheap and, in addition, offer a therapeutic potential. Advances in OCT technology have made it possible to apply OCT in a wide variety of applications but medical applications are still dominating. Specific advantages of OCT are its high depth and transversal resolution, the fact, that its depth resolution is decoupled from transverse resolution, high probing depth in scattering media, contact-free and non-invasive operation, and the possibility to create various function dependent image contrasting methods. This report presents the principles of OCT and the state of important OCT applications.