Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a widely used imaging technique in the micrometer regime, which gained accelerating interest in medical imaging %and material testing in the last twenty years. In up-to-date OCT literature [5,6] certain simplifyi
ng assumptions are made for the reconstructions, but for many applications a more realistic description of the OCT imaging process is of interest. In mathematical models, for example, the incident angle of light onto the sample is usually neglected or %although having a huge impact on the laser power inside the sample is usually neglected or a plane wave description for the light-sample interaction in OCT is used, which ignores almost completely the occurring effects within an OCT measurement process. In this article, we make a first step to a quantitative model by considering the measured intensity as a combination of back-scattered Gaussian beams affected by the system. In contrast to the standard plane wave simplification, the presented model includes system relevant parameters such as the position of the focus and the spot size of the incident laser beam, which allow a precise prediction of the OCT data and therefore ultimately serves as a forward model. The accuracy of the proposed model - after calibration of all necessary system parameters - is illustrated by simulations and validated by a comparison with experimental data obtained from a 1300nm swept-source OCT system.
In this work we consider the inverse problem of reconstructing the optical properties of a layered medium from an elastography measurement where optical coherence tomography is used as the imaging method. We hereby model the sample as a linear dielec
tric medium so that the imaging parameter is given by its electric susceptibility, which is a frequency- and depth-dependent parameter. Additionally to the layered structure (assumed to be valid at least in the small illuminated region), we allow for small scatterers which we consider to be randomly distributed, a situation which seems more realistic compared to purely homogeneous layers. We then show that a unique reconstruction of the susceptibility of the medium (after averaging over the small scatterers) can be achieved from optical coherence tomography measurements for different compression states of the medium.
We consider the problem of reconstructing the position and the time-dependent optical properties of a linear dispersive medium from OCT measurements. The medium is multi-layered described by a piece-wise inhomogeneous refractive index. The measuremen
t data are from a frequency-domain OCT system and we address also the phase retrieval problem. The parameter identification problem can be formulated as an one-dimensional inverse problem. Initially, we deal with a non-dispersive medium and we derive an iterative scheme that is the core of the algorithm for the frequency-dependent parameter. The case of absorbing medium is also addressed.
