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Updated: Jun 26, 2026
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Multimodal Volumetric Retinal Imaging by Oblique Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy (oSLO) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)
Published on: August 4, 2018
Experimental confirmation of potential swept source optical coherence tomography performance limitations.
Kathy Zheng1, Bin Liu, Chuanyong Huang
1Center for Optical Coherence Tomography and Optical Physics, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Applied Optics
|November 22, 2008
Summary
Spectral domain OCT (SD-OCT), particularly swept source OCT (SS-OCT), shows limitations in imaging penetration and increased noise compared to time domain OCT (TD-OCT). TD-OCT may be superior when deep imaging or variable sample distances are critical.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Optics
- Medical Imaging Technology
Background:
- Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a powerful medical imaging technique.
- Time domain OCT (TD-OCT) and spectral domain OCT (SD-OCT) are key approaches.
- SD-OCT, including swept source OCT (SS-OCT), offers advantages but has theoretical performance drawbacks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate specific limitations of swept source OCT (SS-OCT).
- To compare the performance of SS-OCT with time domain OCT (TD-OCT).
Main Methods:
- Experimental evaluation of SS-OCT performance.
- Analysis of imaging penetration, noise, scattering, and saturation effects.
- Comparison with theoretical performance aspects relative to TD-OCT.
Main Results:
- SS-OCT demonstrated reduced imaging penetration and increased low-frequency noise.
- Higher multiple scattering and aliasing artifacts were observed in SS-OCT.
- SS-OCT showed increased sensitivity to sample distance and bandwidth saturation.
Conclusions:
- SS-OCT is suitable for applications requiring high acquisition rates or constant sample distances, such as retinal imaging.
- TD-OCT may offer superior performance for applications prioritizing imaging penetration in high dynamic range scenarios or with variable sample distances.
