Adaptive ranging for optical coherence tomography

At present, optical coherence tomography systems have a limited imaging depth or axial scan range, making diagnosis of large diameter arterial vessels and hollow organs difficult. Adaptive ranging is a feedback technique where image data is utilized to adjust the coherence gate offset and range. In this paper, we demonstrate an adaptive optical coherence tomography system with a 7.0 mm range. By matching the imaging depth to the approximately 1.5 mm penetration depth in tissue, a 3 dB sensitivity improvement over conventional imaging systems with a 3.0 mm imaging depth was realized.