Full-range optical coherence refraction tomography

Abstract

In full-range optical coherence tomography (FROCT), the axial resolution is often superior to the lateral resolution, which is degraded by its signal processing and presents nonuniformity at different imaging depths due to the defocus effect. Optical coherence refraction tomography (OCRT) uses images from multiple angles to computationally reconstruct an image with isotropic resolution, solving the problem of image resolution anisotropy in the sub-millimeter imaging depth range. In this work, we report full-range OCRT (FROCRT), which uses full-range complex conjugate-free optical coherence tomography (OCT) images from multiple angles to reconstruct an isotropic spatial resolution image with extended imaging range. We build a system that can automatically acquire images from 360° for reconstruction. We further apply FROCRT to tape phantom, optical-cleared mouse leg bone and spinal cord samples, and aloe sample, achieving extended imaging depth and isotropic resolution. We propose FROCRT, as an extension to OCRT, will enable broader applications.