Blind dispersion compensation for optical coherence tomography

We present a numerical method for compensating dispersion effects in optical coherence tomography that does not require a priori knowledge of dispersive properties of the sample. The method yields results equivalent to recently demonstrated quantum-optical coherence tomography, but without exploiting non-classical states of optical radiation. Dispersion compensation is accomplished by processing phase information present in standard interferograms to calculate the generalized autoconvolution function. The operation of the method can be conveniently visualized using the Wigner distribution function formalism.