Title

Estimation of longitudinal resolution in optical coherence imaging

Authors

Authors

C. Akcay; P. Parrein;J. P. Rolland

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Appl. Optics

Keywords

TOMOGRAPHY; TISSUES; Optics

Abstract

The spectral shape of a source is of prime importance in optical coherence imaging because it determines several aspects of image quality, especially longitudinal resolution. Wide spectral bandwidth, which provides short coherence length, is sought to obtain high-resolution imaging. To estimate longitudinal resolution, the spectral shape of a source is usually assumed to be Gaussian, although the spectra of real sources are typically non-Gaussian. We discuss the limit of this assumption regarding the estimation of longitudinal resolution. To this end, we also investigate how coherence length is related to longitudinal resolution through the evaluation of different definitions of the coherence length. To demonstrate our purpose, the coherence length for several theoretical and real spectral shapes of sources having the same spectral bandwidth and central wavelength is computed. The reliability of coherence length computations toward the estimation of longitudinal resolution is discussed. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.

Journal Title

Applied Optics

Volume

41

Issue/Number

25

Publication Date

1-1-2002

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

5256

Last Page

5262

WOS Identifier

WOS:000177698800008

ISSN

1559-128X

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