Spectral domain optical coherence tomography using an optical wavefront splitting interferometer

Coherence-domain ranging in optical coherence tomography (OCT) is usually performed using a Michelson interferometer. In this study, a spectrometer based OCT system with a wavefront splitting interferometer is investigated. Instead of using a transmission beam splitting mirror or fiber optic coupler, a silver coated mirror is used to split a portion of the OCT source light into the reference arm of the interferometer. Reference and backscattered sample light of the OCT system interfere non-collinearly in the wavefront splitting interferometer. The OCT system is polarization insensitive, and beam splitting ratio between sample and reference arms is adjustable through controlling the insertion of the beam reflector. Biological tissues are imaged successfully using our OCT setup. This study demonstrates that a non-collinear optical interferometer is also good to be used for OCT imaging.