Enhanced contrast in optical coherence tomography using multiple scattering

Gavrielle R. Untracht; Mingzhou Chen; Philip Wijesinghe; Joesp Mas; Harold T. Yura; Dominik Marti; Peter E. Andersen; Kishan Dholakia

doi:10.1117/12.2670209

11 August 2023 Enhanced contrast in optical coherence tomography using multiple scattering

Gavrielle R. Untracht, Mingzhou Chen, Philip Wijesinghe, Joesp Mas, Harold T. Yura, Dominik Marti, Peter E. Andersen, Kishan Dholakia

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12632, Optical Coherence Imaging Techniques and Imaging in Scattering Media V; 126321G (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2670209
Event: European Conferences on Biomedical Optics, 2023, Munich, Germany

Abstract

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a powerful label-free approach for volumetric morphological imaging with numerous applications, especially within biomedicine. The penetration depth of OCT reaches well beyond conventional microscopy; however, signal reduction with depth leads to a rapid degradation of the signal below the noise level. The important pursuit of imaging at depth has been largely approached by extinguishing multiple scattering. This has been valid for many microscopies; however, here, we postulate that in OCT, multiple scattering can enhance image contrast at depth. We demonstrate this using an original geometry that completely decouples the incident and collection light fields by introducing a spatial offset between them. This approach leads to a preferential collection of multiply scattered light with depth, compensating for signal attenuation and enhancing the image contrast at depth. A wave optics model and unified theoretical framework supports our experimentally demonstrated improvement in contrast. The effective signal attenuation can be reduced by over 24 dB. Our approach reveals mesoscale features in images of ex vivo mouse bone. Considering most approaches to date have aimed to minimize multiple scattering, our results suggest that the problem of OCT imaging at depth should be distinguished from optical microscopy at depth. This facile and widely applicable geometry enables a power capacity to dynamically tune for contrast at depth.

Citation Download Citation

Gavrielle R. Untracht, Mingzhou Chen, Philip Wijesinghe, Joesp Mas, Harold T. Yura, Dominik Marti, Peter E. Andersen, and Kishan Dholakia "Enhanced contrast in optical coherence tomography using multiple scattering", Proc. SPIE 12632, Optical Coherence Imaging Techniques and Imaging in Scattering Media V, 126321G (11 August 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2670209

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