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Microoptics Conference

Capability of intensity-correlation spectral-domain optical coherence tomography

Tomohiro Shirai, Ari T. Friberg

Published Oct 1, 2013• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We describe spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) based on classical intensity correlations. The setup employs a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer as a classical analogue of quantum OCT. It is shown theoretically that it enables scanless cross-sectional imaging with dispersion cancellation and axial resolution enhancement. Some basic features of the technique are addressed.

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We describe spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) based on classical intensity correlations. The setup employs a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer as a classical analogue of quantum OCT. It is shown theoretically that it enables scanless cross-sectional imaging with dispersion cancellation and axial resolution enhancement. Some basic features of the technique are addressed.
We describe a resolution-improved spectral-domain (SD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) based on classical intensity correlations as a counterpart of the recently proposed intensity-based time-domain OCT. Similarly to quantum OCT, the setup employs the Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer at the output of the conventional SD-OCT. It is shown theoretically that a factor-of-√2 improvement in axial resolution is obtained with this arrangement. Some unique and useful features of our proposed system are addressed.
Quantum Optical Coherence Tomography (Q-OCT) presents many advantages over its classical counterpart, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT): it provides an increased axial resolution and is immune to even orders of dispersion. The core of Q-OCT is quantum interference of negatively correlated entangled photon pairs obtained in a Hong-Ou-Mandel configuration. This two-photon interference can be observed in the time domain in the form of dips or in the Fourier domain by means of a joint spectrum. The latter approach proved to be practical in the sense that it alleviated the requirement posed on light in Q-OCT to exhibit strict negative correlations, since the negative correlations can be easily extracted in the Fourier domain as the main diagonal of the joint spectrum. In this work, we investigate the use of this spectral approach in which quantum interference is obtained with classical low-intensity light pulses. We report theoretical calculations and their experimental validation and show that although such classical light is much easier to launch into an experimental system, it offers limited benefits as compared to Q-OCT based on entangled light. We analyse the differences in the characteristics of the joint spectrum obtained with entangled photons and with classical light and explain the origins of these differences.
Using spectrally correlated photon pairs instead of classical laser light and coincidence detection instead of light intensity detection, Quantum Optical Coherence Tomography (Q-OCT) outperforms classical OCT in several experimental terms. It provides twice better axial resolution with the same spectral bandwidth and it is immune to even-order chromatic dispersion, including Group Velocity Dispersion responsible for the bulk of axial resolution degradation in the OCT images. Q-OCT has been performed in the time domain configuration, where one line of the two-dimensional image is acquired by axially translating the mirror in the interferometer's reference arm and measuring the coincidence rate of photons arriving at two single-photon-sensitive detectors. Although successful at producing resolution-doubled and dispersion-cancelled images, it is still relatively slow and cannot compete with its classical counterpart. Here, we experimentally demonstrate Q-OCT in a much faster Fourier-domain configuration, theoretically proposed in 2020, where the reference mirror is fixed and the joint spectrum is acquired by inserting long fibre spools in front of the detectors. We propose two joint spectrum pre-processing algorithms, aimed at compensating resolution-degrading effects within the setup. While the first one targets fibre spool dispersion, an effect specific to this configuration, the other one removes the effects leading to the weakening of even-order dispersion cancellation, the latter impossible to be mitigated in the time-domain alternative. Being additionally contrasted with both the time-domain approach and the conventional OCT in terms of axial resolution, imaging range and multilayer-object imaging, Fourier-domain Q-OCT is shown to be a significant step forward towards a practical and competitive solution in the OCT arena.
A new configuration for optical coherence tomography is proposed that utilizes a phase-conjugate amplifier in conjunction with a Michelson interferometer to detect interference between two classical light fields with a non-zero phase-sensitive cross correlation. This imaging configuration - which we call phase-conjugate optical coherence tomography (PC-OCT) - shares the same factor-of-two axial resolution improvement and cancellation of even-order dispersion terms that are the key features of quantum optical coherence tomography, but without the necessity for non-classical signal and reference beams. Under appropriate conditions, PC-OCT can achieve a signal-to-noise ratio that is comparable to that of conventional optical coherence tomography.
Quantum optical coherence tomography (Q-OCT) offers a factor-of-2 improvement in axial resolution and the advantage of even-order dispersion cancellation when it is compared to conventional OCT (C-OCT). These features have been ascribed to the nonclassical nature of the biphoton state employed in the former, as opposed to the classical state used in the latter. Phase-conjugate OCT (PC-OCT) shows that nonclassical light is not necessary to reap Q-OCT's advantages. PC-OCT uses classical-state signal and reference beams, which have a phase-sensitive cross correlation, together with phase conjugation to achieve the axial resolution and even-order dispersion cancellation of Q-OCT with a signal-to-noise ratio that can be comparable to that of C-OCT.
We demonstrate phase-conjugate optical coherence tomography (PC-OCT) using a classical source of phase-sensitive cross-correlated beams to achieve measurement improvements shared by quantum OCT (Q-OCT): a factor-of-2 enhancement in axial resolution and even-order dispersion cancellation. Compared with coincidence counting used in Q-OCT, PC-OCT employs standard photodetection that results in much faster data acquisitions. This work belongs to a new class of classical techniques inspired by quantum methods that have advantages once thought to be exclusively quantum mechanical.