Biomedical imaging applications of parallel optical coherence tomography and adaptive optics

This dissertation presents design, implementation, and biomedical applications of parallel optical coherence tomography (OCT) and investigations to improve performance of parallel OCT by using partially spatial coherent light source and adaptive optics. A CMOS smart array detector is adapted to the parallel OCT system to improve acquisition speed and to remove any post-demodulation process. A hamster in vivo retina is imaged by the parallel OCT with the CMOS smart array detector. Speckle reduction in parallel OCT is demonstrated by using partially spatial coherent light source in numeric simulation and experiments. Investigation of origin of speckle is performed by imaging spatial refractive index variation with differential phase sensitive OCT. Parallel OCT with adaptive optics is designed and implemented. Improvement of lateral resolution in reflective and scattering sample is demonstrated.