Widefield optical coherence tomography by electro-optical modulation

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a unique imaging modality capable of axial sectioning with a resolution of only a few microns. Its ability to image with high resolution deep within tissue makes it ideal for material inspection, dentistry, and, in particular, ophthalmology. Widefield retinal imaging has garnered increasing clinical interest for the detection of numerous retinal diseases. However, real-time applications in clinical practice demand the contrast of swept-source OCT at scan speeds that limit their depth range. The curvature of typical samples, such as teeth, corneas, or retinas, thus restricts the field-of-view of fast OCT systems. Novel high-speed swept sources are expected to further improve the scan rate; however, not without exacerbating the already severe trade-off in depth range. Here, we show how, without the need for mechanical repositioning, harmonic images can be rapidly synthesized at any depth. This is achieved by opto-electronic modulation of a single-frequency swept source laser in tandem with tailored numerical dispersion compensation. We demonstrate experimentally how real-time imaging of highly-curved samples is enabled by extending the effective depth-range 8-fold. Even at the scan speed of a 400 kHz swept source, harmonic OCT enables widefield retinal imaging.