SPECTRAL DOMAIN OPTICAL IMAGING WITH WAVELENGTH COMB ILLUMINATION

Apparatus and methods are presented for spectral domain optical imaging, in particular for single shot 3-D spectral domain imaging of the retina or angio-OCT applications, using an extended illumination field comprising a plurality of linearly displaced combs of wavelengths selected from across the light source bandwidth. This allows recovery of phase and amplitude information at many times the Nyquist depth, without the loss of optical power that would be incurred by traditional wavelength comb generators such as etalons. Spatially incoherent or partially spatially incoherent light sources can be used in certain embodiments. In certain embodiments a temporally modulated angular component is imposed on a short axis of the extended illumination field. In preferred embodiments light reflected or scattered from the object is sparsely sampled in the far field, e.g. at a Fourier plane, in a dimension perpendicular to the long axis of the extended illumination field.