In vivo high resolution human retinal imaging with wavefront correctionless full-field OCT

TL;DR

This study demonstrates high-resolution, wavefront correctionless full-field OCT retinal imaging in vivo, combining FFOCT with spectral-domain OCT for real-time optical path length matching, revealing detailed retinal structures.

Contribution

First in vivo demonstration of high-resolution retinal imaging with FFOCT without wavefront correction, using spectral-domain OCT for real-time optical path length matching.

Findings

Achieved diffraction-limited FFOCT images of retinal layers

Revealed nerve fiber orientation and blood vessel distribution

Visualized photoreceptor mosaic in vivo

Abstract

As the lateral resolution of FFOCT with spatially incoherent illumination has been shown to be insensitive to aberrations, we demonstrate high resolution en face full-field OCT (FFOCT) retinal imaging without wavefront correction in the human eye in vivo for the first time. A combination of FFOCT with spectral-domain OCT (SDOCT) is applied for real-time matching of the optical path lengths (OPL) of FFOCT. Through the real-time cross-sectional SDOCT images, the OPL of the FFOCT reference arm is matched with different retinal layers in the FFOCT sample arm. Thus, diffraction limited FFOCT images of multiple retinal layers are acquired at both the near periphery and the fovea. The en face FFOCT retinal images reveal information about various structures such as the nerve fiber orientation, the blood vessel distribution, and the photoreceptor mosaic.