A Quantitative Model for Optical Coherence Tomography

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantitative OCT model that incorporates system-specific parameters like focus position and beam size, enabling more accurate predictions of OCT data compared to traditional simplified models.

Contribution

It presents a novel OCT model considering realistic light-sample interactions and system parameters, improving the accuracy of OCT data prediction.

Findings

Model accurately predicts OCT data after calibration.

Validated by comparison with experimental OCT data.

Enhances understanding of OCT measurement processes.

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a widely used imaging technique in the micrometer regime, which gained accelerating interest in medical imaging in the last twenty years. In up-to-date OCT literature [5,6] certain simplifying assumptions are made for the reconstructions, but for many applications a more realistic description of the OCT imaging process is of interest. In mathematical models, for example, the incident angle of light onto the sample is usually neglected or a plane wave description for the light-sample interaction in OCT is used, which ignores almost completely the occurring effects within an OCT measurement process. In this article, we make a first step to a quantitative model by considering the measured intensity as a combination of back-scattered Gaussian beams affected by the system. In contrast to the standard plane wave simplification, the presented model includes system relevant parameters such as the position of the focus and the spot size of the incident laser beam, which allow a precise prediction of the OCT data and therefore ultimately serves as a forward model. The accuracy of the proposed model - after calibration of all necessary system parameters - is illustrated by simulations and validated by a comparison with experimental data obtained from a 1300 nm swept-source OCT system.