Signal-to-noise ratio enhanced spectral domain optical coherence tomography with dual-balanced detection

• Main Authors: Bo, En, Liu, Xinyu, Liu, Linbo
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Optical and Biomedical Imaging; Optical Coherence Tomography; DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/89402; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/46228
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) with dual-balanced detection (DBD) for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) enhancement is developed. The dual-balanced detection in the SD-OCT system inherently achieves two-fold increase of the interested signal amplitude, minimizes the common background noise and suppresses artifacts by combining two phase-opposed interferometric spectra obtained simultaneously in comparison to unbalanced detection configuration, resulting in a significant SNR increase and dc elimination performance. Two interferometric spectrum were captured using a dual-line CCD through the same spectrometer optics. This new design is of lower cost compared with the dual CCD design. The feasibility and validity of this SD-OCT system with dual-balanced detection are demonstrated by experimental measurement of a 95% reflector.