Human retinal imaging using visible-light optical coherence tomography guided by scanning laser ophthalmoscopy

We achieved human retinal imaging using visible-light optical coherence tomography (vis-OCT) guided by an integrated scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO). We adapted a spectral domain OCT configuration and used a supercontinuum laser as the illumating source. The center wavelength was 564 nm and the bandwidth was 115 nm, which provided a 0.97 µm axial resolution measured in air. We characterized the sensitivity to be 86 dB with 226 µW incidence power on the pupil. We also integrated an SLO that shared the same optical path of the vis-OCT sample arm for alignment purposes. We demonstrated the retinal imaging from both systems centered at the fovea and optic nerve head with 20° × 20° and 10° × 10° field of view. We observed similar anatomical structures in vis-OCT and NIR-OCT. The contrast appeared different from vis-OCT to NIR-OCT, including slightly weaker signal from intra-retinal layers, and increased visibility and contrast of anatomical layers in the outer retina.