Numerical analysis of one-shot full-range FD-OCT system based on orthogonally polarized light

Full-range Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) is generally achieved using a phase shifting algorithm. A novel design is presented for a one-shot full-range Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) system utilizing orthogonally polarized light. The phase-shifted interferograms required to reconstruct the sample structure are obtained using an apochromatic quarter-wave retarder rather than a mechanical scanning operation, and thus the imaging results are free of vibrational-induced errors. The numerical analysis shows that it enhances the quality of high resolution FD-OCT and reduces the acquisition time. Moreover, the simulation results show that the proposed system is robust toward both the presence of noise in the power spectrum of the super luminescent diode (SLD) and a slight non-orthogonality of the two light beams incident on the spectrum analyzers, respectively.