Time-domain optical coherence tomography with digital holographic microscopy

We show that digital holography can be combined easily with optical coherence tomography approach. Varying the reference path length is the means used to acquire a series of holograms at different depths, providing after reconstruction images of slices at different depths in the specimen thanks to the short-coherence length of light source. A metallic object, covered by a 150-mu m-thick onion cell, is imaged with high resolution. Applications in ophthalmology are shown: structures of the anterior eye, the cornea, and the iris, are studied on enucleated porcine eyes. Tomographic images of the iris border close to the pupil were obtained 165 mu m underneath the eye surface. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.