Full range complex spectral domain optical coherence tomography without additional phase shifters

We demonstrate a new full range complex spectral domain optical coherence tomography (FRC SD-OCT) method. Other than FRC SD-OCT systems reported in literature, which employed devices such as electro-/acousto optic modulators or piezo-driven mirrors providing the phase modulations necessary for retrieval of the complex-valued signal, the system presented works without any additional phase shifting device. The required phase shift is introduced by the galvanometer scanner used for transversally scanning the sample beam. By means of a slight displacement of the probe beam with respect to the scanning mirror's pivot axis, the sample arm length and thus the phase is continuously modulated as the beam is scanned in lateral direction. From such modulated spectral data, the complex-valued data yielding a twofold increase of accessible depth range can be calculated using an algorithm based on the Hilbert transform. To demonstrate the performance of our method quantitative measurements of the suppression of mirror images as a function of induced phase shift were performed. In order to validate the FRC SD-OCT technique for high-speed imaging of biological tissue, we present full-range images of the human anterior chamber in vivo.