Waskito NUGROHO, Yoshikuni ITO, Molly Subhash HREBESH¹, and Manabu SATO^*

Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Yamagata University, Yonezawa, Yamagata 992-8510, Japan
¹School of Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR 97239, U.S.A.

(Received September 27, 2010; Revised December 24, 2010; Accepted January 5, 2011)

Single-shot full-field optical coherence tomography (OCT) using spatially phase-modulated reference light has been proposed to achieve a higher sensitivity.¹⁾ The reference light can be generated by a spatially phase-modulated mirror array (SPMA). The basic characteristics of an interference image using SPMA have been demonstrated using a superluminescent diode (SLD) with a center wavelength of 840 nm as a popular low-coherence light source. SPMA consisted of a small mirror of 10× 10 μm² and had a full area of 5× 5 mm². The magnifications in the reference arm were 3, 2, and 1. The corresponding magnifications in the signal arm were 18.1, 12.2, and 5.2. The ratios of the interference area to the full CCD area were 0.68, 0.32, and 0.13. Visibilities and ratios for calculations were measured at 0.38 (54%), 0.19 (28%), and 0.062 (8.2%). The periodical background noise was high owing to interferences with scattered lights from SPMA. From the spectra of signal intensity profiles in the subtracted image between two interference images, it was confirmed that the optical phase in the reference light was spatially and periodically modulated by SPMA.

Key words: optical coherence tomography, full field, single shot, spatially phase-modulated reference light

^*E-mail address: msato@yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp