Stephen A. Boppart

TL;DR: A Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:Al(2)O(3) oscillator, optimized for minimal coherence length, is demonstrated as a high-power source for high-resolution optical coherence tomographic imaging.

TL;DR: In this article, an endoscopic system for performing optical coherence tomography includes an optical radiation source; a reference optical reflector; a first optical path leading to the reference optical reflectedor; and a second optical path coupled to an endoscopy unit.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared OCT and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging of in vitro atherosclerotic plaques and found that OCT yielded superior structural information in all plaques examined.

Abstract: State-of-the-art methods in high-resolution three-dimensional optical microscopy require that the focus be scanned through the entire region of interest. However, an analysis of the physics of the light–sample interaction reveals that the Fourier-space coverage is independent of depth. Here we show that, by solving the inverse scattering problem for interference microscopy, computed reconstruction yields volumes with a resolution in all planes that is equivalent to the resolution achieved only at the focal plane for conventional high-resolution microscopy. In short, the entire illuminated volume has spatially invariant resolution, thus eliminating the compromise between resolution and depth of field. We describe and demonstrate a novel computational image-formation technique called interferometric synthetic aperture microscopy (ISAM). ISAM has the potential to broadly impact real-time three-dimensional microscopy and analysis in the fields of cell and tumour biology, as well as in clinical diagnosis where in vivo imaging is preferable to biopsy.

TL;DR: In this paper, the abdominal aorta of New Zealand white rabbits was demonstrated at a source resolution of 10 µm, but required the displacement of blood with saline during imaging.