High speed low coherence interferometer for optical coherence tomography

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive imaging technology, which provides subsurface imaging of biological tissue with a resolution in the micrometer range. OCT sensors either work in the time or Fourier domain. We present a new interferometer setup based on a fiber double pinhole arrangement. Two fibers are placed in parallel similar to Young's two-pinhole interference experiment with spatial coherent and temporal incoherent light. The interference pattern is observed on a linear CCD-array. A complete A-scan can be derived from a single readout of the CCD-array. The experimental setup is described in detail. The main parameters of the setup are derived theoretically and compared with experiments. First images of technical and biological samples are presented.