Multi-shaping technique reduces sidelobe magnitude in optical coherence tomography

Shaping methods that are commonly used in Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) can suppress sidelobe artifacts in the axial direction, but they typically broaden the mainlobe of the point spread function (PSF) and reduce the axial resolution. To improve OCT image quality without this tradeoff, we have developed a multi-shaping technique that reduces the axial sidelobe magnitude dramatically and achieves better axial resolution than conventional shaping methods. This technique is robust and compatible in various FD-OCT imaging systems. Testing of multi-shaping in three experimental settings shows that it reduced the axial sidelobe contribution by more than 8 dB and improved the contrast to noise by at least 30% and up to three-fold. Multi-shaping enables accurate image analysis and is potentially useful in many OCT applications.