TY - JOUR
T1 - Super-resolved thickness maps of thin film phantoms and in vivo visualization of tear film lipid layer using OCT
AU - dos Santos, Valentin Aranha
AU - Schmetterer, Leopold
AU - Triggs, Graham J.
AU - Leitgeb, Rainer A.
AU - Gröschl, Martin
AU - Messner, Alina
AU - Schmidl, Doreen
AU - Garhofer, Gerhard
AU - Aschinger, Gerold
AU - Werkmeister, René M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Optical Society of America.
PY - 2016/7/1
Y1 - 2016/7/1
N2 - In optical coherence tomography (OCT), the axial resolution is directly linked to the coherence length of the employed light source. It is currently unclear if OCT allows measuring thicknesses below its axial resolution value. To investigate spectral-domain OCT imaging in the super-resolution regime, we derived a signal model and compared it with the experiment. Several island thin film samples of known refractive indices and thicknesses in the range 46-163 nm were fabricated and imaged. Reference thickness measurements were performed using a commercial atomic force microscope. In vivo measurements of the tear film were performed in 4 healthy subjects. Our results show that quantitative super-resolved thickness measurement can be performed using OCT. In addition, we report repeatable tear film lipid layer visualization. Our results provide a novel interpretation of the OCT axial resolution limit and open a perspective to deeper extraction of the information hidden in the coherence volume.
AB - In optical coherence tomography (OCT), the axial resolution is directly linked to the coherence length of the employed light source. It is currently unclear if OCT allows measuring thicknesses below its axial resolution value. To investigate spectral-domain OCT imaging in the super-resolution regime, we derived a signal model and compared it with the experiment. Several island thin film samples of known refractive indices and thicknesses in the range 46-163 nm were fabricated and imaged. Reference thickness measurements were performed using a commercial atomic force microscope. In vivo measurements of the tear film were performed in 4 healthy subjects. Our results show that quantitative super-resolved thickness measurement can be performed using OCT. In addition, we report repeatable tear film lipid layer visualization. Our results provide a novel interpretation of the OCT axial resolution limit and open a perspective to deeper extraction of the information hidden in the coherence volume.
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U2 - 10.1364/BOE.7.002650
DO - 10.1364/BOE.7.002650
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84977080689
SN - 2156-7085
VL - 7
SP - 2650
EP - 2670
JO - Biomedical Optics Express
JF - Biomedical Optics Express
IS - 7
M1 - 260201
ER -