In vivo blood flow imaging by a swept laser source based Fourier domain optical Doppler tomography

A swept source based Fourier domain optical Doppler tomography (FDODT) system was developed. The technique is based on a phase-resolved method where phase information was retrieved from the reconstructed complex fringe signals. The aliasing effects and artifacts caused by lateral scanning and sample movement were removed with a signal processing technique. The standard deviation of the phase shift of the system was reduced from 49 to 1.8 degrees with the signal processing method employed. Structural, Doppler and Doppler variance images of fluid flow through glass channels were quantified, and blood flow through vessels of chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) was demonstrated in vivo.