Fourier domain optical coherence tomography

Patent Granted SEFD-OCT extracts spectral information by distributing different optical frequencies onto a detector stripe (line-array CCD or CMOS) via a dispersive element (see Fig. 4). Thereby the information of the full depth scan can be acquired within a single exposure. However, the large signal to noise advantage of FD-OCT is reduced due to the lower dynamic range of stripe detectors with respect to single photosensitive diodes, resulting in an SNR (signal to noise ratio) advantage of ~10 dB at much higher speeds. This is not much of a problem when working at 1300 nm, however, since dynamic range is not a serious problem at this wavelength range.