Axial resolution improvement by spectral data fusion in simultaneous dual-band optical coherence tomography

A method for axial resolution improvement by adequate spectral data fusion of two parallel acquired disjunct wavelength bands in the 0.8 mu m and 1.3 mu m region in the field of simultaneous dual-band optical coherence tomography (OCT) is presented. The applied spectral domain dual-band OCT system is illuminated by a supercontinuum laser light source and allows simultaneous imaging at 800 nm and 1250 nm with free-space axial resolutions better than 4 5 lam and 7 mu m, respectively, over the entire depth scan range. Each wavelength band is analyzed with an individual spectrometer at an A-scan rate of 12 kHz. To further improve axial resolution, the 1250 nm spectra are fused with the 800 nm spectra considering the spectrometer-inherent non-linear fringe frequency course of the interference light. The phase and amplitude of the 1250 nm spectra are matched to the 800 nm spectra by means of short time Fourier transform analysis in order to obtain ideally continuous joint spectra. The joint spectra then undergo conventional spectral shaping, wave number resampling, windowing and fast Fourier transformation. First results for single A-scans of a glass slide as well as entire cross-sectional images of biological tissue yield an axial resolution improvement of 52 % compared to conventional single band imaging at 800 nm. The obtained A-scans show a good sharpness with a side lobe suppression of 30 dB. Additional investigations have to be employed for the full understanding of the underlying physical background and the optimization of the applied data processing for further image quality enhancement.