Optical Coherence Tomography Flashcards
What is an example where OCT is used in day to day life?
Opticians
What does optical refer to in OCT?
Visable light (400-700nm)
What does coherence refer to in OCT?
Waves that move together and the specific properties that some light sensors have
What does tomography refer to in OCT?
Takes 3D images that we an slice at any dimension to give a full overview of the body
Generally, how does OCT work?
Similar to ultrasound, there is relfection from boundaris in tissues where the refractive index changes
What is refractive index?
Is a material property that describes how the material affects the speed of light travelling through it
What is the refractive index dependent on?
- Speed of light
- Phase velocity of light
What is a temporally coherent source?
Over a time period, points on the wave move together
The source is monochromatic (a single wavelength)
What is a temporally incoherent source?
Changing wavelength/combination of wavelengths over time
What is a spatially coherent source?
In a set time, points on the wavelength move together
They are ‘in phase’, related to size of emitter, distance from source, wavelength
What is a spatially incoherent source?
Points on the wavefront do not move together
Which coherence is important for OCT?
Temporal coherence
What is the resolution range of OCT?
1-10micrometers
What is the penetration range of OCT and why?
- Relatively narrow (between 1 mm and 1cm)
- Light goes through and gets absorbed by chromophores such as Hb and meltatonin
- Anything in the yellow or green range gets absorbed and scattered- can therefore only penetrate red
- Fujimoto J.G, Schmitt J et al 2020
What are the three relevant properties of loght for OCT?
- Coherence
- Wavelength (relates to penetration depth in the tissue and how to maximise this)
- Power (energy/unit of time) (want to stay within the damage threshold of the tissue)
What is the temporal coherence for monochromatic light and what is an example of a light source?
- Temporal coherence is strong
- A laser
- Singular wavelength
What is the temporal coherence for ‘white’ light?
- Contains all wavelengths
- Has low/no coherence
- Huge spectral bandwidth
What is the spectral brandwidth?
- The width of frequency distribution
What is the perfect temporal coherence for OCT?
- Need a medium amount of wavelengths
- Medium spectral bandwidth
- Complicated envelope of waves
What is the wave envelope?
The line over the top of the waves
What does coherence length (cl) tell us?
Tells us how coherent the light source is
This is proportional to the wavelength spread and the bandwidth of the light source
Also relates to the resolution
What are the basic components within an OCT?
- 2 ‘arms’
- Light source
- Beam splitter (semi silvered mirror)- allows light to pass through in both directions
- Mirror that can move backwards and forwards
- Detector
- Huang D, Wand J et al 1991
What does the michaelson interferometer do?
- At the detector the light sources recomvine and interfere if the path length of the two arms is within the coherence length of the source
- If the coherence length of the light source is small then this only occurs for a small distance
How can you work out the depth probed in the sample using OCT michaelson interferometer?
Can determine the depth to a high accuracy if you know the mirror scan distance
What are some inefficiencies with the classic michaelson interferometer OCT?
- Most tissue is turbid (scatters the light)
- Reflection is therefore poor- signal to noise ratio is not good
- Ideally the signals to the detector would be balanced
How can you get around the inefficiencies of the classic Michaelson interferometer OCT?
Use a fibre based systom with a circulator
What does a circulator do in OCT?
- Light goes from the laser to the centre
- It ensures that light from only one way can go into a specific junction
- 1 goes into 2, and 2 into 3
- Therefore 90% goes into the tissue and 10% to the mirror
- Better signal to noise ratio
What is axial resolution in terms of imaging resolution?
- Resolution in the depth of the tissue
- Axial resolution is dependent on the bandwidth (and hence coherence length) of the light source
- Axial resolution is inversely proportional to the bandwidth of the light source
What is lateral resolution in terms of imaging resolution?
- Resolution across the surface
- Lateral resolution is dependent on the optics of the system (lens properties) and the wavelength (as per optical microscopy-related to the diffraction limit)
- Lateral resolution is proportional to wavelength and focal distance of the lens and inversely proportional to the siameter of the light souce incident on the lens
What determines the choice of wavelength when considering imaging a tissue?
- Predetermined due to available wavelength of sources deliverable by fibre, designed for telecoms
- Absorbancy of the molecule
- Optical window (to get deeper into the tissues and avoid damage)
- Scattering in the tissue (want to avoid this)
What are some different absorbing molecule wavelengths?
- Melanin, water and Hb are strong absorbers
- Hb has two peaks 500-600nm
- They drop down as we go into the infrared side
What is the most common wavelength/light source used in OCT and what are the values associated with it?
- Superluminescent diodes (or other broadband light sources)
- GaAs: 800nm
- Bandwidths: 30nm
- Axial resolution: 10 micrometers in tissue
- Drexler w, Fujimoto JG, Springer 2013
What does a larger bandwidth mean in terms of reslution
Higher resolution
Which light source produces the largest bandwidth?
- Femtosecond (10^-15) lasers
- Near IR bandwidths (800nm-1micrometer)
- Drexler w, Fujimoto JG, Springer 2013
What is a 1D image in terms of OCT?
- Is an A-mode scan (amplitude) and is a depth profile of the sample
- Dingle point measure into depth of tissue, showing boundaries as peaks in reflected signal
What is a 2D image in terms of OCT?
- B-mode/2D is made up of a series of z-axis scans into depth resolution of microns into tissues.
- Single plane, cross-section through sample
- ‘Optical biopsy’
What is a 3D image in terms of OCT?
- En-Face/3D builds up 2D scans by raster scanning over the surface
- X-Y scan of the surface of the tissue, surface reflection, surface topography
What is a spectral/fourier domain set up of OCT?
- Can be higher speed (100x)
- Higher resolution and have better signal to noise than michaelson interferometer
- Reflectance interference between the reference arm and the tissue is calculated simultaneously at all points along the depth of the A-scan
What does spectral/fourier domain OCT rely on?
Obtaining the spectrum of reflected light