Abstract

We investigate methods to realise optical low coherence tomography with field illumination and an imaging system. The coherence gated measurements are performed with a Michelson interferometer, imaging optics and a slow-scan CCD camera. The probe is illuminated by a parallel beam with a diameter of up to 1mm. A limitation of this method is set by multiple scattering within the tissue. To describe the influence of multiple scattered photons, light is focused on the sample and the backscattered light is superimposed by a parallel reference beam. We describe the limits for measuring 3-dimensional structures within scattering samples.

© 1996 Optical Society of America