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Quantifying the influence of Bessel beams on image quality in optical coherence tomography

Curatolo, A; Munro, PRT; Lorenser, D; Sreekumar, P; Singe, CC; Kennedy, BF; Sampson, DD; (2016) Quantifying the influence of Bessel beams on image quality in optical coherence tomography. Scientific Reports , 6 , Article 234. 10.1038/srep23483. Green open access

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Abstract

Light scattered by turbid tissue is known to degrade optical coherence tomography (OCT) image contrast progressively with depth. Bessel beams have been proposed as an alternative to Gaussian beams to image deeper into turbid tissue. However, studies of turbid tissue comparing the image quality for different beam types are lacking. We present such a study, using numerically simulated beams and experimental OCT images formed by Bessel or Gaussian beams illuminating phantoms with optical properties spanning a range typical of soft tissue. We demonstrate that, for a given scattering parameter, the higher the scattering anisotropy the lower the OCT contrast, regardless of the beam type. When focusing both beams at the same depth in the sample, we show that, at focus and for equal input power and resolution, imaging with the Gaussian beam suffers less reduction of contrast. This suggests that, whilst Bessel beams offer extended depth of field in a single depth scan, for low numerical aperture (NA < 0.1) and typical soft tissue properties (scattering coefficient, μs = 3.7 mm−1 and high scattering anisotropy, g > 0.95), superior contrast (by up to ~40%) may be obtained over an extended depth range by a Gaussian beam combined with dynamic focusing.

Type: Article
Title: Quantifying the influence of Bessel beams on image quality in optical coherence tomography
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/srep23483
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep23483
Language: English
Additional information: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: TIME-DOMAIN METHOD, SCATTERING MEDIA, MULTIPLE-SCATTERING, BIOLOGICAL TISSUES, MICROSCOPY, LIGHT, OCT, PROPAGATION, ALGORITHM, SYSTEMS
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Med Phys and Biomedical Eng
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1515386
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