Enhancement of optical coherence microscopy in turbid media by an optical parametric amplifier

We report the enhancement in imaging performance of a spectral-domain optical coherence microscope (OCM) in turbid media by incorporating an optical parametric amplifier (OPA). The OPA provides a high level of optical gain to the sample arm, thereby improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the OCM by a factor of up to 15 dB. A unique nonlinear confocal gate is automatically formed in the OPA, which enables selective amplification of singly scattered (ballistic) photons against the multiply-scattered light background. Simultaneous enhancement in both imaging depth and spatial resolution in imaging microstructures in highly light-scattering media are demonstrated with the combined OPA-OCM setup. Typical OCM inteferograms (left) and images (right) without and with OPA.