Enhancing the OCT images by the low-coherence fringe envelope deconvolution method

The Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) technique provides a subsurface structure investigating along the penetration depth of incident light. The basic principle of this technique is to locate the envelope maximum position of low-coherence interference fringes obtained under the controllable displacement of the reference mirror in interferometer. The obtained OCT image presents a result of convolution of random tissue internal structure presented by a path-length-resolved diffuse reflectance with interferometer response on the ideal change of optical path difference, i.e. with a low-coherence fringe envelope, which has usually known Gaussian form. To increase the OCT image resolution, the deconvolution method can be used. In this paper, the application results of the iterative van Gittert algorithm of deconvolution to the OCT images are presented. Experimental results demonstrate the increase of the envelope peaks after 3-5 iterations approximately in 1.5 times with better resolution between them. The tissues tomograms calculated using van Cittert algorithm are presented. Some OCT image details lost in the usual OCT tomograms are visible and more contrast.