Takeyoshi NOUCHI^1*, Masahiro AKIBA² and Kin Pui CHAN^1,2

¹Graduate Program of Human Sensing and Functional Sensor Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Yamagata University, 4-3-16 Jyonan, Yonezawa, Yamagata 992-8510, Japan
²Yamagata Promotional Organization for Industrial Technology, 2-2-1 Matsuei, Yamagata 990-2473, Japan

(Received May 18, 2005; Accepted September 28, 2005)

We report on the spectroscopic optical coherence tomography of highly scattering media using a parallel detection scheme incorporated with an ultrabroadband femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser in the range of 700–880 nm. A plurality of spectrally-resolved reflectance profiles are simultaneously measured in a single longitudinal scan, from which information on the spectral content of the sample is derived. Differential absorption measurements of scattering media with known characteristics are performed to demonstrate the potential use in quantitative analysis.

Key words: optical coherence tomography, spectroscopy, parallel heterodyne detection, differential absorption imaging, femtosecond laser

^*E-mail address: t-nouchi@ypoint.jp