Breaking diffraction limit of lateral resolution in optical coherence tomography

Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery

Xincheng Yao²  Benquan Wang¹  Qiuxiang Zhang¹  Rongwen Lu¹ 

[1] Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA;;Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA;Department of Vision Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA;Vision Science Research Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA

关键词: Optical coherence tomography (OCT);    retina;    three-dimensional imaging;   

DOI  :  10.3978/j.issn.2223-4292.2013.10.03

学科分类：外科医学

来源: AME Publications

【 摘 要 】

Quantitative imaging of biomedical specimens is essential in biomedical study and diagnosis. Given excellent capability in three-dimensional (3D) imaging, optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been extensively used in ophthalmic imaging, vascular medicine, dermatological study, etc. Lateral resolution of the OCT is light diffraction limited, which precludes the feasibility of quantitative assessment of individual cells. In this paper, we demonstrated the feasibility of breaking diffraction-limit in OCT imaging through virtually structured detection (VSD). OCT examination of optical resolution target verified resolution doubling in the VSD based OCT imaging. Super-resolution OCT identification of individual frog photoreceptors was demonstrated to verify the potential of resolution enhancement in retinal imaging. We anticipate that further development of the VSD based OCT promises an easy, low cost strategy to achieve sub-cellular resolution tomography of the retina and other biological systems.

【 授权许可】

Unknown