Optimized off-axis cylindrical mirror-focused line-scanning system for optical coherence tomography imaging applications
Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 22, 2026

Multimodal Volumetric Retinal Imaging by Oblique Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy (oSLO) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)
Published on: August 4, 2018
Mohammad Kamal1, Sivakumar Narayanswamy, Muthukumaran Packirisamy
1Concordia University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 1455 De Maisonneuve Boulevard West, Montreal, Quebec, H3G1M8 Canada.
Abstract:
The parameters of an off-axis cylindrical mirror-focused line-scanning system were studied to optimize the flatness of the 2 mm scan field. The scanning system parameters included the beam size, the distance between the scanning and the focusing mirror, the angle between the incident beam and the reflected beam, the optical scan angle, and the effective focal length of the cylindrical mirror. Because of the off-axis line-scanning system configuration, the scanning could be carried out either in the tangential (Y-scan) or in the sagittal (X-scan) plane. A 53 nm spectral bandwidth light source was used to evaluate the imaging performance of the scanning system. Since reflective optics is employed in this work for focusing, the scanning system could be used with a higher spectral bandwidth light source for optical coherence tomography applications. The effect of the angle between of the incident and reflected beams, the distance between the mirrors, the focal length of the cylindrical mirror and the scanning directions, on the flatness of the scan field were studied. It was proved that the sagittal scanning is least sensitive to variations in scanning system parameters and thus provides maximum flexibility in design.
Related Concept Videos
Computed Tomography
The technique was invented in the 1970s and is based on the principle that as X-rays pass through the body, they are absorbed or reflected at different levels. In the technique, a patient lies on a motorized platform while a computerized axial tomography (CAT) scanner rotates...
Imaging Biological Samples with Optical Microscopy
In optical microscopy, the specimen to be viewed is placed on a glass slide and clipped on the stage...
Electron Microscope Tomography and Single-particle Reconstruction
Electron Tomography
Electron tomography can be performed either in TEM or STEM (scanning transmission...
Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy
Phase Contrast and Differential Interference Contrast Microscopy
In-phase-contrast microscopes, interference between light directly passing through a cell and light refracted by cellular components is used to create high-contrast, high-resolution images without staining. It is the oldest and simplest type of microscope that creates an image by altering the wavelengths of light rays passing through the specimen. Altered wavelength paths are created using an annular stop in the condenser. The annular stop produces a hollow cone of...

