Optical Coherence Tomography of Semitransparent Media: Analysis of the Method

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a modern technique suited for high-resolution, real-time, in-vivo and in-situ imaging of biological tissue. OCT can provide images with a micron-level resolution, higher than in other known medical imaging methods, such as ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography. Since the early 1990s, OCT has been widely used in medical applications as a non-invasive, safe and inexpensive imaging technique. Over time, basic principles of OCT, various approaches, measurement setups and devices have been described in many publications and reports. However, some theoretical aspects of OCT are not yet covered in-depth, in particular, the questions related to statistical analysis and statistical modelling of this imaging technique. This paper revisits the problem of spectral domain OCT using a mathematical approach stemming from radar signal processing, which combines Fourier-based analysis and statistical (correlation) analysis. In this context, the broadband signal from the low-coherence light source is represented in the time and spectral domains, and the object signal is modeled as the complex scattering coefficient of the test semitransparent media. We showed how the proposed approach can be used for statistical simulation of OCT imaging. The results presented in this work are achieved for the first time.