Optical coherence tomography used for security and fingerprint-sensing applications

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an emerging technology for high-resolution cross-sectional imaging of three-dimensional structures. In the past, OCT systems have been used mainly for medical applications, especially ophthalmological diagnostics. As the OCT system is capable of exploring the internal features of an object, the authors apply OCT technology to document security and fingerprint-based biometrics by directly retrieving the two-dimensional information form of a multiple-layer information carrier and internal human body objects. Since a typical depth-resolution of an OCT system is of micrometre scale, an information carrier having a volume of 20 mm x 20 mm x 2 mm could contain 200 mega-pixel images. On other hand, the technologies used in conventional biometrics can be easily fooled and tampered with by using artificial dummies, because these ID features are extracted only from the surface of the skin. Hence the use of OCT to explore the internal biometrics becomes increasingly important.