Spatially incoherent illumination interferometry: a PSF almost insensitive to aberrations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that using spatially incoherent illumination in full-field optical coherence tomography (FFOCT) results in a point spread function that is nearly unaffected by aberrations, unlike traditional coherent methods.

Contribution

It is the first demonstration showing that incoherent illumination makes the PSF in FFOCT almost insensitive to aberrations, improving imaging robustness.

Findings

Incoherent illumination reduces PSF sensitivity to aberrations.

Experimental results confirm theoretical predictions.

Incoherent FFOCT maintains resolution despite aberrations.

Abstract

We show that with spatially incoherent illumination, the point spread function width of an imaging interferometer like that used in full-field optical coherence tomography (FFOCT) is almost insensitive to aberrations that mostly induce a reduction of the signal level without broadening. This is demonstrated by comparison with traditional scanning OCT and wide-field OCT with spatially coherent illuminations. Theoretical analysis, numerical calculation as well as experimental results are provided to show this specific merit of incoherent illumination in full-field OCT. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such result has been demonstrated.